Licensing a repository

The future of Yucca Mountain:

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) submitted thier license application for authorization to construct and operate a high-level nuclear respository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada on June 3, 2008 to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

On March 5th, 2010 Department of Energy (DOE) filed a motion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to withdraw the application to build and operate Yucca Mountain.

About one year ago President Barack Obama cut all funding for the DOE's work towards realizing Yucca Mountain apart from answering questions from the NRC related to the license application.

The current route for the nation is the 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, nominated last month (Feb 2010). It is to evaluate fuel-cycle and disposal options, including the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel, but will not touch on any siting concerns. Work for the group begins with its first meeting on 25-26 March and will continue until 2012.

Critics say the geology of the mountain ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas is unsuitable for safe storage of nuclear waste for periods that would stretch beyond tens of thousands of years. Further, they say shipping the radioactive material to Nevada would invite accidents and possible attacks.

But others contend the DOE strategy to place waste in corrosion-resistant containers within Yucca Mountain tunnels will meet federal safety standards for up to 1 million years.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is in the midst of multiyear safety review, while panels of the commission's administrative judges are hearing legal challenges to the project. Both would come to an end if the Department of Energy is given permission to withdraw a construction application.

After three decades, the country is back to square one on the construction of a national nuclear waste long term storage facility.

The reasons for the change in direction have been rather vague. Concerns about the safety of transporting dangerous radioactive waste cross country by rail have been cited. But, there have been transports of waste going on for years without an accident or terrorist threats.

In addition, questions have been raised about earthquake faults near the Yucca site, but previous DOE scientists have said that tectonic and seismic activity would not affect the natural systems. The ongoing tectonic deformation happens at such a slow rate, it would not affect the area for the 10,000 year duration of compliance.

If Yucca Mountain remains an unviable repository for the country’s radioactive nuclear waste, the material will have to be stored on the site of each nuclear power plant. It would not be an immediate problem for newer designs and future plants, which would have time and storage capacity to wait out the development for a new repository plan. But older facilities like the Dresden Nuclear Power plant, could inevitably have to store its waste well past the 60 year decommission time.

News
Timeline update 2010

 

  • On March 3rd 2010, the DOE submitted a motion to withdraw its pending license application for a permanent geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada asking the Board to dismiss its application with prejudice and to impose no additional terms of withdrawal.
  • March 3rd, 2010 the State of Washington (Washington) petitions for leave to intervene in this proceeding.
  • March 4th 2010, Aiken County, South Carolina petitioned to intervene in opposition to the DOE’s motion to withdraw, with prejudice, its application. (In the alternative, Aiken County seeks to stay the matter pending a resolution of the petition Aiken County filed with the US court of Appeals concerning the lawfulness of a Motion to Withdraw the license application. The court of appeals has directed the DOE to respond to the petition by March 24. ( Aiken County also stated “the remaining respondents have failed to act as required under 42 U.S.C.A. § 10134(d) by acquiescing in and granting the DOE's request that consideration of the already submitted License Application be stayed pending its withdrawal, rather than considering and issuing a final decision on the merits of said application. Under 42 U.S.C.A. § 10134(d), these parties have an obligation to review and rule on the License Application as submitted.”)
  • March 15, 2010 the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners filed to intervene (NARUC, founded in 1889, is a national organization whose members include the commissioners that head the agencies in the fifty States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands charged with regulating the rates and conditions of service associated with the intrastate operations of electric, natural gas, water, and telephone utilities.)
  • March 15th, 2010 Petition to Intervene of the Prairie Island Indian Community (The Petitioner is a federally recognized Indian tribe, whose community is adjacent to an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation where spent nuclear fuel is presently stored.)

 

Yucca Mountain Licensing Proceeding

In order to participate as a party in the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository licensing proceeding, an entity or person must be admitted to the proceeding by following the procedures of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's rules, at 10 CFR §2.309, which require a request for hearing, a petition to intervene, a demonstration of standing, and at least one admitted contention (accepted by the NRC hearing board9S). At the close of the filing period, on December 22, 2008, a total of 318 contentions had been filed by see contentions.

The NRC rule prescribes the format of contentions as seen below:

A NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) panel is expected to rule on admission of parties and contentions by May 2009 after reviewing any objections made by DOE, the license applicant, and the NRC staff, and responses from the affected potential parties. Admitted contentions will be litigated by the parties and ruled on by an ASLB panel during the hearing portion of the licensing proceeding. The ASLB panel will recommend a licensing decision to the NRC Commissioners. Some affected Nevada counties have elected to be non-party participants, as permitted by NRC rules, and they will decide, once contentions are admitted, in which of those litigations they will participate.

thumbnail icon of new website for tracking the hearingsPlease visit our new website which tracks the hearings associated with the department of energy's (DOE) licenseapplication (LA).

 

 

New issued schedule as of July 21st, 2009

On July 10, 2009, the NRC Staff responded to the Board’s July 2, 2009 order concerning scheduling. The Staff stated that it will not be able to issue its Safety Evaluation Report (SER) in accordance with the schedule in 10 C.F.R. Part 2, Appendix D. Rather, at present, the Staff intends to issue the SER serially. The Staff estimates that the SER will be issued as follows:

Volume 1 (Review of General Information)

March 2010

Volume 3 (Review of Repository Safety After Permanent Closure)

September 2010

The Staff asserts that completion dates for three other volumes 2, 4 and 5 cannot be estimated with a reasonable degree of certainty at this time. In the absence of a Staff estimate, unless and until informed to the contrary, the Board will assume solely for case management purposes that these volumes will be issued approximately as follows:

Volume 2 (Review of Repository Safety Before Permanent Closure);

(October 2011)

Volume 4 (Review of Administrative and Programmatic Requirements);

(December 2010)

and Volume 5 (License Specifications and Conditions)

(February 2012)

The fact that the Staff will likely issue the SER serially, over several years, requires a different approach to scheduling discovery and hearings than would be appropriate if the entire SER were available in April 2010, as contemplated by Appendix D. Few non-NEPA contentions can be adjudicated before relevant portions of the SER are issued. To proceed expeditiously and efficiently, therefore, the Board believes that discovery and hearings should proceed serially as well. Accordingly, to assist the Board in preparing a Case Management Order, the Board directs the parties as follows:

First

The NRC Staff shall clarify the subject matter of each of the five volumes of the SER. Specifically, on or before July 31, 2009, the Staff shall file and serve electronically an explanation of which specific sections of the Safety Analysis Report (SAR) or other portions of the Application pertain to each of the five SER volumes.

Second

All parties shall consult and seek agreement upon responses to the following questions:

1. Which admitted contentions are associated with each of the five proposed volumes of the SER?

2. Separately, which admitted legal issue contentions, as identified in the Construction Authorization Boards’ May 11, 2009 Memorandum and Order, are associated with each of the five proposed volumes of the SER?

3. As to each admitted legal issue contention, what other admitted Safety, NEPA or Miscellaneous contentions might potentially be resolved on the basis of how that legal issue contention is decided?

4. Which admitted NEPA contentions have no safety component, such that they could efficiently and appropriately be adjudicated without regard to the status of the SER or any similar safety-related contention?

5. Which, if any, admitted NEPA contentions (in addition to NYE-NEPA-001) involve matters that are the subject of pending supplementation of DOE’s environmental impact statement concerning the proposed repository?

6. Which, if any, contentions identified in response to question 4, but not in response to question 5, require discovery before being ripe for adjudication? Describe the general nature of any such discovery.

The parties shall file their joint response to the foregoing six questions on or before August 17, 2009.

 

link to the schedule imageSchedule for the Proceeding on Consideration of Construction Authorization for a High-Level Waste Geologic Repository

 

 

 

image link to schedule after SER is issuedSchedule for the Proceeding on Consideration of Construction Authorization for a High-Level Waste Geologic Repository
(After SER is Issued)

 

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