Progress on waste issue key to support for nuclear: US senator Washington (Platts)–15 Sep 2016 US Senator Dianne Feinstein of California said at an appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday that she cannot continue to support nuclear power if there is “no strategy for the long-term storage of the waste.”
Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, criticized the nuclear power industry in her opening statement on what she called its failure to speak with “one voice” on the need for interim storage of utility spent fuel. The country, she said, “should be working to establish interim [spent fuel] storage far away from reactors and population centers.” The hearing was scheduled to look at the future of nuclear power.
The lesson of the Yucca Mountain repository project is “any solution to nuclear waste needs to be voluntary,” Feinstein said. She and subcommittee chairman Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, and Senators Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Maria Cantwell of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the energy committee, have introduced legislation that would, among other things, establish a consent-based siting process. The bill has not moved out of committee, however.
Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz told the subcommittee that a voluntary siting process is needed and that DOE will discuss during at a public meeting Thursday in Washington input the department received during eight public meetings held across the US on what a consent-based siting process should involve this year.
Support for a nuclear waste facility has to be aligned on the community, state and federal levels to avoid “bad surprises later on,” Moniz said.
In response to a question from Feinstein, Moniz said DOE’s general counsel has said the department has the authority, although not specifically stated, to use a private-sector facility to store utility spent fuel. He said DOE could move forward on setting up contracts with such facilities.
Currently, private-sector efforts are underway in Texas and New Mexico to site consolidated interim storage facilities that would have DOE as its only customer. http://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/washington/progress-on-waste-issue-key-to-support-for-nuclear-21519625
