Report: Waste to exceed Yucca’s limit

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, Oct. 21, 2004 | 11:06 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A rise in nuclear power plant relicensing since 2002, when Congress approved a repository at Yucca Mountain, shows there will be thousands more tons of nuclear waste produced than the site can legally hold, a new report says.

The report, done by the Environmental Working Group Action Fund, argues that with new nuclear power production, the problem of nuclear waste won't go away, repeating an argument Nevada's congressional delegation and other critics of the site have used.

"The public never really gets the full story and is never really told what is going on," said Richard Wiles, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group Action Fund. "They are not being told the truth about Yucca Mountain or nuclear waste in their communities."

He said the Energy Department claims Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, will solve the waste problem, but as plants renew their licenses, that just means more waste will be generated on site. He said the real way to take care of the waste is to stop licensing plants.

"Then we'll know when the end is," he said.

Nuclear power is part of the administration's energy plan. The Energy Department and the industry point out that federal law already aims to rectify the problem.

"The law contemplated Congress would have to deal with this on an ongoing basis," said Steve Kraft, director of waste management at the Nuclear Energy Institute. "Things change. Congress will have ample time to evaluate it."

Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Energy Department can only store 70,000 metric tons at the repository, but has to go back to Congress between 2007 and 2010 to say what it plans to do with the rest of the waste. It can either expand storage at Yucca or decide to create a new site.

The Environmental Working Group Action Fund's report says said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "quickly and quietly" started renewing more reactor licenses after Congress said the Yucca project could move forward.

The report, titled "X Marks the Spot," found that from March 2000 through June 2002 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended the licenses at five power plants, beginning with the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland.

But from July 2002 through May 2004 the commission approved 10 similar license renewals. The report lists a state-by-state breakdown of plants with new licenses and how much more waste would be sent to Nevada.

"When approved and currently pending relicensing applications are considered together more than three times as many reactors were relicensed or applied for relicensing after the July 2002 vote, than before -- 34 versus 10," according to the report.

Nine power plants in seven states have renewals pending for 18 reactors. If those are renewed, they would generate 6,600 metric tons of spent fuel that would need to be stored at Yucca.

The group found that 26 reactors at 15 nuclear power plants have been relicensed since 2000. They will generate an additional 9,000 metric tons of nuclear waste during their 20-year extensions.

NRC spokesman David McIntyre said the commission issues multiple press releases when renewals are approved and nothing there is secret.

McIntyre said there is "no explicit or implied link" between Congress's approval of Yucca Mountain and the commission's approval of applications.

Congress voted to approve Yucca in July 2002. The first renewal after that was approved in March 2003, he said. A renewal can take two years to complete in some cases. Of the 16 plants that received renewals, all but two applied before the vote on Yucca Mountain.

Kraft said it is "purely serendipitous" that more renewals took place after the approval. He said the commission made a determination before the 2002 vote that waste disposal did not need to be included in a renewal application because a plan already existed for it.

Wiles said the finding confirmed his belief that the Yucca project is a "nuclear power expansion plan in disguise."

But Kraft called that claim "ridiculous."

"Yucca Mountain serves a lot of interests," he said. "Was Yucca Mountain a boost to the future of this industry? Yes, but Yucca Mountain would have been needed if this industry was going to stop. You would still need to dispose of it (nuclear waste)."

The report says that "virtually none of this newly generated waste can be shipped to Yucca Mountain without a formal, legal, expansion of the repository."

Kraft said nuclear power plants now hold about 46,000 tons of waste and have about 56,000 tons on site by the time Yucca is set to open in 2010. He said it would be 2030 before Yucca Mountain would reach the 70,000 metric ton capacity, but the bigger issue is how quickly the waste will be moved from the site to Nevada.

"One thing we know how to do is put it in geologic disposal. We owe it to future generations to do at least that," he said. "Although there is potential for future innovations we don't know about yet, but we can't bank on it."