Report: New recommendations for nuclear waste

Contributors and support: Lake Barrett is a former Department of Energy official who directed the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, overseeing the selection of the Yucca Mountain site for waste disposal in 2002. Allison Macfarlane was the chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2012 to 2014 and is the director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. The report was funded by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

In addition to Barrett and Macfarlane, the Path Forward for Nuclear Waste Committee authors include nine people whose interests and experience reflect a diversity of backgrounds including federal, state, and tribal governments; public interest groups; academia; and the nuclear industry: Kara Colton, Fred Dilger, Rod McCullum, Timothy Smith, Jack Spencer, Mary Anne Sullivan, Thomas Webler, Heather Westra, and Greg White.

Background: According to Barrett and Macfarlane, the report is necessary because of the continued failure of the DOE to fulfill the duties charged to it by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The NWPA tasked the agency with finding, developing, and operating a geologic repository to hold waste. Twenty years later, Yucca Mountain was identified as a potential site, and though some progress was made, it never received a license to operate. Congress halted its funding in 2010.

Now, 44 years after NWPA, Barrett and Macfarlane said, “We are no closer to a final solution for nuclear waste” than the country was in 1982.

Founding NuCorp: The solution, they believe, is the foundation of NuCorp—or Nuclear Corporation—which would work for the public benefit of final nuclear waste disposal and take on the responsibilities currently charged to the DOE by the NWPA.

NuCorp would be led by a board of directors whose members would represent “decommissioned and operating plants, geographically diverse members, and those with differing public oversight (i.e., large and small reactors, merchant and regulated plants.)” The report states that the board could add external members representing host states, local communities, and affected tribes.

Macfarlane explained that this structure was inspired by current international solutions to waste management. “We looked at what has worked elsewhere, including Finland and Sweden, which are both constructing deep repositories for their nuclear waste, having already settled on a site for the facility. We realized that the nuclear reactor owners are the real experts on managing nuclear waste because they already do it, and they will be best at aligning efficiencies and doing a safe and cost-effective job.”

The report also emphasizes two levels of oversight under which NuCorp would operate. First, any site selected would require NRC licensing. Second, NuCorp would be overseen by a newly established independent advisory committee composed of technical experts as well as representatives from affected state, tribal, and local governments. This committee would report annually to NuCorp’s board, Congress, and the public on the progress made on solving the nuclear waste issue.

The Path Forward suggests that NuCorp be funded through the existing Nuclear Waste Fund, which is currently paid into by nuclear power plant operators and is primarily funded by ratepayers.

Go deeper: A brief summation of the report’s findings written by Barrett and Macfarlane is available here, and the with the report can be found here.