Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire - Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry. Nuclear Activities
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Friday, March 21, 2025
Nuclear energy’s MAGA comeback in the AI era
Nuclear energy’s MAGA comeback in the AI era
To Lydia Moynihan:
We would like to correct a fact in your article regarding Diablo Canyon retirement at https://nypost.com/2025/03/21/business/nuclear-energys-maga-comeback-in-the-ai-era/.
California's Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) was given an operations extension to at least 2030 by the passage of California SB 846 (Dodd, 2022) on September 2, 2022. The plant's owner PG&E has applied for a standard 20 year extension to 2045 with the NRC regarding the plant's initial operation license.
The independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power (CGNP) was the organization that led the effort which resulted in the passage of SB 846. Despite many obstacles, CGNP continues to fight for DCPP extended operations.
Surprisingly, Warren Buffett leads the likely effort to shut down DCPP for one of Buffett's firms financial gain. (This has parallels to the needless closure of Indian Point in 2021 which was lobbied for by fossil fuel interests.) PacifiCorp has sold about a billion dollars of mostly coal-fired power to replace San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS) when SONGS was needlessly shut down at the end of January, 2012 instead of being repaired.
PacifiCorp recently spent well over $10 million lobbying at the state and federal level. The likely business purpose is to increase its sales of coal-fired power into the lucrative California power market. California must annually import about 100 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity where 1 TWh is a billion kilowatt-hours. This is the greatest amount of imports of any state. PacifiCorp is poised to take advantage of this structural weakness. PacifiCorp owns a fleet of coal-fired power plants in Wyoming and nearby states. Their total generation capacity is about 6,000 megawatts.
To learn more, please review several relevant articles at CGNP's GreenNUKE Substack.
Gene Nelson, Ph.D. CGNP Senior Legal Researcher and President
Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP)
1375 East Grand Ave Ste 103 #523
Arroyo Grande, CA 93420-2421
(805) 363 - 4697 cell
Government@CGNP.org email
https://CGNP.org website
https://greennuke.substack.com Substack
Thursday, March 20, 2025
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Attachment
Additional Information Supporting the Finding, Conclusions, and Recommendation
Contained in the Letter of March 18, 2025, from the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review
Board to Congress and the Secretary of Energy
As described in the preceding letter dated March 18, 2025, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical
Review Board is required in Section 508 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 as amended
(NWPA) to report its findings, conclusions, and recommendations to Congress and the Secretary
of Energy. The letter identifies one finding, two conclusions, and one recommendation.
Additional information is provided here regarding each of these points.
Finding: The nation needs one or more deep geologic repositories for
permanent disposal of domestic spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive
waste.
There is nothing new in this finding, but nonetheless, the Board sees merit in restating it. The
recognition that deep geologic disposal is the best option for permanent management of high-
level radioactive waste dates back to the 1950s (e.g., National Research Council 1957), and has
been reiterated over the past 60-plus years by multiple scientific studies and expert reviews in the
U.S. and all other nations with significant quantities of highly radioactive wastes (e.g., National
Research Council 1978, 1990, 2001; NASEM 2023; BRC 2012; NWTRB 2014; see NWTRB
2022a for a summary of waste management programs in other nations).
The U.S. Department of
Energy’s 1980 Final Environmental Impact Statement: Management of Commercially Generated
Radioactive Waste (DOE 1980) provided a definitive summary of a decade or more of research
on alternatives for long-term radioactive waste management when it concluded that “disposal of
commercially generated radioactive wastes in deep geologic repositories is warranted.” The
DOE’s 1980 study further noted that “[t]his conclusion applies whether the wastes are generated
in the once-through or in the reprocessing fuel cycle option” (DOE 1980, section 1.8). The 1980
study considered a full range of disposal options, including very deep boreholes, rock melt
concepts, island-based disposal concepts, sub-seabed disposal, ice sheet disposal, well injections,
transmutation, and space disposal, all both with and without reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel to
separate fissile material for reuse. “A mined geologic repository is the preferred alternative based
on evaluation of radiological effects during the operational period, non-radiological effects on
the human environment, status of development, conformance with existing National and
international law, independence from future development of the nuclear industry and potential
for corrective or mitigating actions” (DOE 1980, section 1.8). Based in part on this conclusion,
the need for one or more mined repositories became a fundamental basis for U.S. national policy
in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982, “An Act to provide for the development of
repositories for the disposal of high-level radioactive and spent nuclear fuel …” (Public Law 97-
425, January 7, 1983).
Two questions warrant further discussion relevant to any assertion that the basic conclusions of
the DOE’s 1980 study and every substantive review since remain valid.
First, have there been
advances in disposal technologies during the intervening decades that would change the
conclusion? Second, have there been advances in nuclear engineering, either in reactor design,
nuclear fuel design, or in spent fuel processing technology, that might change the conclusion?
With respect to possible impacts of advances in disposal technology, no entirely new concepts
have appeared in the realm of practical engineering since 1980. Further research on some of the
approaches that were evaluated in 1980 have shown them to be no more suitable now for large
scale implementation than they were then (e.g., space launch, transmutation), and others (e.g.,
sub-seabed disposal) are precluded by international treaty (Rechard et al. 2011). One concept
evaluated in 1980 that has seen major advances in relevant technology in the intervening years is
disposal in deep boreholes.
Two points are critical here to the finding that the U.S. needs a mined
geologic repository regardless. First, the borehole disposal concept remains untested at full scale,
and much work remains to be done before the concept can be brought to licensing, if ever (e.g.,
NWTRB 2016a; Swift and Newman 2022). Second, and more importantly, even if borehole
disposal can be demonstrated and implemented, it will not obviate the need for mined geologic
repositories in the U.S. or other nations that have large inventories of wastes, including some that
already exist in configurations that preclude disposal in conventional boreholes without
expensive and dose-intensive waste treatment and/or repackaging. As this Board has noted
previously, “[e]ven if disposal of some radioactive waste in deep boreholes is determined to be
feasible, the need for a mined, geologic repository is not eliminated” (NWTRB 2016a, p. iv).
With respect to the possible impacts of advances in nuclear technology on options for disposal,
the Board recognizes that newer reactor and fuel designs allow for more efficient use of fissile
materials and may therefore generate smaller volumes of waste requiring deep geologic disposal.
However, no advances in nuclear technology will completely remove the need for deep geologic
disposal of at least some wastes. In part, this is because large quantities of spent nuclear fuel
exist today with no plausible pathway for reuse: as the DOE concluded in 2013, “approximately
98 percent of the [then-existing] total current inventory of commercial used nuclear fuel by mass
can proceed to permanent disposal without the need to ensure post-closure recovery for reuse”
(DOE 2013, p. 7). As the authors of the underlying technical analysis supporting this conclusion
noted, the potential for future reuse of the then-existing spent nuclear fuel is low. “Recycling in
any potential future alternative fuel cycle would likely be designed and optimized for the
material needs of the associated reactor fleet based on the current and projected [used nuclear
fuel] discharges and inventory at that time (emphasis added), rather than [used nuclear fuel]
feedstock that is no longer being produced” (Wagner et al. 2012, p. xii). Furthermore, regardless
of the efficiency of future reactor and fuel designs, some high-level wastes will continue to be
generated, although perhaps in smaller quantities. As a National Academies review panel
concluded in 2023, “advanced reactors and their associated fuel cycles would not eliminate the
requirement for geologic repositories for some radioactive wastes, because even advanced
reactors will require disposal of radioactive fission products” (NASEM 2023, p. 1). The Board
concurs with this conclusion.
Conclusion 1: The Department of Energy does not have an effective program,
as of December 2024, that could lead to a geologic repository.
The Board has reviewed the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy’s activities relevant to geologic
disposal within the Used Fuel Disposition program, and its successor, the Spent Fuel and High-
Level Waste Disposition program, since 2011. From the beginning, this program has defined its
activities relevant to the permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive
waste as research, rather than as work that will lead to the siting, licensing, construction, and
operation of a repository. As described by the DOE in February 2011, a near-term objective of
the Used Fuel Disposition Campaign was to “Develop a comprehensive understanding of the
current technical bases for disposing of used nuclear fuel, low-level nuclear waste, and high-
level waste in a range of potential disposal environments to identify opportunities for long-term
research and development” (Boyle 2011, p. 7). A long-term objective at that time was to
“Develop a fundamental understanding of disposal system performance in a range of
environments for potential wastes that could arise from future nuclear fuel cycle alternatives
through theory, simulation, and experimentation” (Boyle 2011, p. 8). In 2024, the stated
objectives had been updated, but the message was similar; the three goals of the DOE’s disposal
research program were defined to be: 1) provide a sound technical basis for multiple viable
disposal options in the U.S., 2) to increase confidence in the robustness of generic (i.e., non-site-
specific) disposal concepts, and 3) develop the science and engineering tools needed to support
disposal concept implementation (Sassani 2024, p. 4).
Throughout this period the Board has found much of value in the DOE’s disposal research
program and has offered detailed and constructive observations and recommendations about how
to make the best use of the available resources to address relevant technical and scientific topics
(e.g., NWTRB 2014, 2016b, 2021a, 2021b, 2022b). The conclusion offered here is in no way a
criticism or a judgment of the disposal research program, which has added greatly to the
scientific understanding of the nation’s options for geologic disposal. The conclusion is based on
a simple common-sense observation that a research program without a site cannot, on its own,
lead directly to the disposal of radioactive wastes in a geologic repository.
The Board noted in 2021 that timely progress toward permanent disposal “is still required,” and
provided specific recommendations regarding actions that could help create the capability to
successfully implement a geologic repository (NWTRB 2021b). The DOE has made substantive
progress relevant to some of these recommendations, including actions to engage the public and
other stakeholders early in the planning process regarding the siting of centralized interim
storage facilities, but, overall, the national repository program remains on hold. The DOE
summarized an overarching strategic goal for disposal research in a presentation to the Board in
2024 as to “Poise Program to Leap into Next Stage” (Sassani 2024, p. 4). The Board concurs
with this goal.
Conclusion 2: The lack of an effective repository program brings a high risk
that ongoing efforts to site one or more federal interim storage facilities will
ultimately be unsuccessful.
This conclusion builds on an observation previously noted by the Board in its letter report to
DOE-NE Assistant Secretary Huff in 2024 (Siu 2024, p. 7) that “timely progress on a geologic
disposal program … is needed now to provide confidence that storage of [spent nuclear fuel] at a
federal consolidated storage facility will be interim and not permanent. Such confidence will be
necessary for consent from states, Tribes, and communities.” This conclusion is based on the
Board’s past and recent reviews of experiences in both the U.S. and other nations and is
consistent with the scientific understanding of the importance of trust and confidence in building
public acceptance for collaborative siting decisions (e.g., NWTRB 2024).
Concerns about the possibility that interim storage facilities could become a de facto permanent
storage facility in the absence of a geologic repository are not new to the U.S. program. The
1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act (Public Law 100-203, Title V) addressed these
potential concerns directly by introducing requirements into the NWPA that precluded
construction of a Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) facility (i.e., a federal consolidated
interim storage facility) until after a repository had received a license for construction (NWPA
section 148(d)(1)). The intent of the law notwithstanding, Governor Mike Sullivan of Wyoming
cited exactly this concern in his 1992 veto of a proposed MRS facility in Fremont County,
Wyoming. “Can we and are we willing to trust the federal government’s assurances that the MRS
site will be temporary? Can we be paid enough or place enough in trust to accept a permanent
repository that was intended to be temporary? It is my belief we cannot.” (Sullivan 1992). In
1997, Governor Mike Leavitt of Utah cited the same concern in issuing an executive order
opposing temporary spent nuclear fuel storage at the proposed Private Fuel Storage facility. He
stated, “If nuclear waste comes to Utah, chances are it won’t be moved again” and “The fallacy
of the term ‘temporary facility’ will be exposed” (Leavitt 1997).
These concerns continue to persist. In 2020, Governor Lujan Grisham of New Mexico raised the
concern again in voicing opposition to a proposed private spent fuel storage facility in
southeastern New Mexico by stating “At this time, the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] cannot
guarantee that a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel in the United States will be
developed in 40, 80, or 120 years, or that the proposed Holtec [consolidated interim storage
facility] will not become a permanent repository” (Lujan Grisham 2020). Responses to a DOE
2021 Federal Register request for information on “Using a Consent-Based Siting Process to
Identify Federal Interim Storage Facilities” (86 FR 68244) show that a concern raised by at least
some state government officials regarding the eventual removal of spent nuclear fuel from
interim storage is widely held, at least among those who provided written responses to the
request: “Numerous commenters expressed concern that a consolidated interim storage facility
will become a de facto permanent storage facility since a repository for final disposal of spent
nuclear fuel does not yet exist” (DOE 2022, p. 37). More recently, a bill in the Wyoming
legislature that would have opened the possibility for that state to reconsider temporary storage
of spent nuclear fuel failed to come to a vote in the state House of Representatives, in part, over
concerns about the federal government’s failure to establish a permanent repository (as reported
by Bleizeffer 2025).
Based on both the historical record and the DOE’s preliminary observations from its ongoing
work on consent-based and collaborative siting processes, the Board concludes that there is a
high likelihood that concerns about the potential for interim storage to persist indefinitely will
continue to be raised regarding proposals for federal storage facilities until the DOE has
demonstrated a clear path to siting, licensing, and constructing a permanent repository.
Recommendation: The Board recommends that the Department of Energy take
the steps necessary, working with Congress as needed, to create a workable
pathway to site, license, construct, and operate a geologic repository for the
permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
This recommendation is consistent with recommendations made by others in the past (e.g., BRC
2012) and builds on recommendations made previously by this Board that “will support th8
creation of a robust, safe, and effective nuclear waste management capability for the nation,
including laying the groundwork for a successful geologic repository” (NWTRB 2021b). In
keeping with the Board’s statutory mandate to provide findings, conclusions, and
recommendations specific to the technical and scientific basis for the DOE’s activities managing
the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, we make no recommendations
regarding policy actions that may be taken to create a workable pathway to geologic disposal.
Regardless of the approach taken, we reiterate that, in our technical and scientific judgment, a
geologic repository for permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste
is essential, and that the national nuclear waste management program will remain stalled until an
effective repository program is in place
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Board Letter to U.S. Congress and Secretary to Energy - March 18, 2025 - pns001vf-nwtrb-mar2025-letter-report.pdf
Board Letter to U.S. Congress and Secretary to Energy - March 18, 2025 - pns001vf-nwtrb-mar2025-letter-report.pdf
UNITED STATES
NUCLEAR WASTE TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD
2300 Clarendon Boulevard, Suite 1300
Arlington, VA 22201-3367
Telephone: 703-235-4473 Fax: 703-235-4494 www.nwtrb.gov
March 18, 2025
The Honorable Mike Johnson
Speaker of the House
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Chuck Grassley
President Pro Tempore
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Christopher Wright
Secretary
United States Department of Energy
1000 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20585
Dear Speaker Johnson, Senator Grassley, and Secretary Wright:
The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board was established as an independent federal
agency in the 1987 Amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) and is charged with
performing an independent evaluation of the technical and scientific validity of activities
undertaken by the Secretary of Energy to implement the NWPA. The Board is required by
Section 508 of the NWPA, as amended, to report its findings, conclusions, and recommendations
to Congress and the Secretary of Energy.
Since its inception, the Board has provided independent expert review of U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) activities, and the Board strives to offer constructive and actionable
recommendations that, if implemented, serve to bolster the success of, and confidence in, the
national nuclear waste management program. To fulfill its mission, the Board must work closely
with the DOE. In this regard, the Board specifically thanks the current DOE team within the
Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), led by Acting Assistant Secretary Michael Goff and Deputy
Assistant Secretary Paul Murray for their ongoing support of our mission. We commend the
entire DOE-NE team for their commitment to moving the nation toward a permanent solution for
the management of the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
In providing this letter as our first report of 2025, the Board takes the opportunity to summarize a
small number of broad observations clearly and directly to a new Congress and a new Secretary.
In part, we are restating and expanding on observations that we have made in the past that relate
directly to the technical and scientific activities essential for a successful program for managing
spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. These observations are rooted both in our
long history of reviewing the DOE’s program and from lessons learned from other nations
actively conducting nuclear waste management. We present our observations here in formal
terms as a finding, two conclusions, and a recommendation. Additional information supporting
our bases for these points is provided in an attachment to this letter. None of the points raised
here should come as a surprise to anyone; each has been noted before by this Board and by
others. We believe, however, that there is value in emphasizing them at this time of transition.
Finding: The nation needs one or more deep geologic repositories for
permanent disposal of domestic spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive
waste.
The Board finds that a successful program for safe long-term management of spent nuclear fuel
and high-level radioactive waste will require a geologic repository for safe permanent disposal.
As described further in the attachment, this finding is consistent with decades of scientific
research and expert review in the U.S. and other nations, and is a fundamental premise of the
NWPA of 1982. Without a geologic repository the nation will be unable to fulfill its
responsibilities for managing and disposing of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive
waste that have been created since the 1940s, are still being produced for national defense and
energy needs, and will likely expand to meet future national needs.
Conclusion 1: The Department of Energy does not have an effective program,
as of December 2024, that could lead to a deep geologic repository.
Based on our review of the technical and scientific basis for the DOE-NE activities, the Board
concludes that the existing research and development program evaluating hypothetical disposal
concepts without actions to identify one or more specific sites for consideration will not alone be
sufficient to meet the national responsibility to develop a repository for permanent disposal of
spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. As described further in the attachment, this
conclusion is not meant to be a criticism of technical and scientific work done within the existing
DOE program; the Board has in past reviews found merit in much of that work. Permanent
disposal of radioactive waste requires knowledge of the geologic system that can only be gained
through site-specific activities. The conclusion is based on the common-sense observation that a
research program cannot, on its own, lead directly to the disposal of radioactive wastes in a
geologic repository without site-specific investigations.
Conclusion 2: The lack of an effective repository program brings a high risk
that ongoing efforts to site one or more federal interim storage facilities will
ultimately be unsuccessful.
Also based on its ongoing review, the Board concludes that the DOE-NE efforts to develop one
or more federal consolidated interim storage facilities for commercial spent nuclear fuel are
unlikely to meet with full success without substantive progress toward implementing a geologic
disposal solution. Specifically, confidence that a repository for permanent disposal will be
available in the future is likely to be a significant factor in achieving acceptance at local, state,
and national levels for new interim storage facilities. As described further in the attachment, this
conclusion is a restatement of an observation made by this Board in April 2024.
Consistent with this finding and these conclusions, the Board offers the following
recommendation:
Recommendation: The Board recommends that the Department of Energy take
the steps necessary, working with Congress as needed, to create a workable
pathway to site, license, construct, and operate a geologic repository for the
permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
Consistent with the Board’s statutory mandate and as explained in the attachment, the finding,
conclusions, and recommendation presented here are based solely on considerations of the
technical and scientific aspects of those activities needed to successfully implement an integrated
nuclear waste management program. We make no recommendations regarding policy actions that
may or may not be associated with efforts to establish an effective repository program. The
Board welcomes the opportunity to discuss any of these topics further with you.
Sincerely,
Peter Swift
Chair
Enclosure
cc: The Honorable Mike Lee, U.S. Senate
The Honorable Martin Heinrich, U.S. Senate
The Honorable John Kennedy, U.S. Senate
The Honorable Patty Murray, U.S. Senate
The Honorable Bob Latta, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Kathy Castor, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Chuck Fleischmann, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Marcy Kaptur, U.S. House of Representatives
Dr. Michael Goff, Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
Note: Current and past Members of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board who have
contributed to this letter include P. Swift (Chair), R. Allen-King, R. Ballinger, L. Barrett, M.
Greiner, S. Jurisson, N. Siu, S. Tuler, S. Tyler, and B. Woods. Support was provided by the
professional and administrative staff of the U.S. NWTRB.
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Monday, March 17, 2025
Sunday, March 16, 2025
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