Piling up spent nuclear fuel presents future disposal challenge

Piling up spent nuclear fuel presents future disposal challenge

by Lee Gliddon

Even were the Energy Department to resume this year licensing efforts for Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear power waste disposal facility, it would still be 15 years before the site could start accepting spent fuel, says the Government Accountability Office.

By then, about 50,000 metric tons of spent fuel stored roughly equally in wet and dry storage will have accumulated, assuming that no new nuclear power plants open in the interim, according to Nuclear Energy Institute estimates cited by the GAO in an Aug. 15 report (.pdf) not posted online until Sept. 14.

The Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada was to have accepted its first delivery of spent fuel in 1998, but the Energy Department instead announced in 2009 it planned to terminate licensing work. Last year, Nuclear Regulatory Commission commissioners directed the licensing board to suspend work by Sept. 30, 2011.
"Currently, it remains uncertain whether NRC will have to resume its license review efforts and whether a repository at Yucca Mountain will be built," auditors say. Licensing an alternate disposal facility would likely take about 40 years, the GAO estimates--by when close to 140,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel will have accumulated.http://inpowano.blogspot.com/2012/09/piling-up-spent-nuclear-fuel-presents.html