NEI Nuclear Notes

The WIPP facility Sometimes, it just takes a little push. For example, The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (whew! – let’s call it the BRC) made a number of recommendations on how to proceed with used nuclear fuel without Yucca Mountain. One recommendation still promoted the use of one or more permanent repositories just like Yucca Mountain, but the interest here – and the push - is on a second, related suggestion: interim storage sites. However many of these there would be, they would be many fewer than the nuclear facilities now holding used nuclear fuel – if the idea is to decrease the number of sites with used fuel, then this is an especially plausible idea. Even better, the BRC said that communities could suggest themselves as hosts for these interim sites. The federal government could then negotiate terms with the communities, assuming there are viable locations to put the sites. This idea arose from a visit the BRC members took to the Department of En...

Storing Used Nuclear Fuel at WIPP From Konrad Szymanski , a European Parliament MP: “Commissioner [Gunther] Oettinger is responsible for energy policy across all 27 EU countries. It would be extremely disappointing if this became an exercise in forcing Germany’s position on nuclear energy down the throats of other countries.” I’ve never cared for that phrase, popular during the health care debate, and would be surprised if Szymanski actually used it in whichever language he was speaking when he said it. What he’s talking about is a European Union report about the stress tests performed on nuclear energy facilities there. The report does not recommend closing any plants; it does recommend spending up to 25 billion Euro (about $32 billion) to make them “safer.” This hasn’t gone over well. The report is misleading because it conveys the impression that plants are unsafe and a lot of work is needed to make them safer, while in reality the situation is not that dramatic. Moreo...

Over the past few weeks, the people of Carlsbad, N.M., have been busy making one thing known: they want the United States’ nuclear waste and they want it bad. Their support is being driven by recommendations released last week from the Obama administration’s blue ribbon commission on how to fix the nation’s nuclear waste management program . Most noteworthy for the people of Carlsbad is the recommendation by the commission that the United States pursue a “consent-based approach,” where local communities are engaged in the project from the beginning so that they avoid a situation where politics later trump progress on a much-needed repository (*cough* Yucca Mountain *cough*). My colleague Mark Flanagan explained this approach and the reasoning behind it on the blog last week. Carlsbad is unique from any other area of the country because it is home to salt beds, an ideal burial place for transuranic waste because of its self-sealing qualities, which is why the U.S. Department of ...