Interim nuclear waste site mulled

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2006 | 12:30 p.m.

WASHINGTON - President Bush likely will propose that the government estabtlish an above-ground facility for temporary storage of highly radioactive waste while Yucca Mountain is under construction, an energy trade publication said Monday.

An Energy Department spokesman would not confirm that report, which appeared in Energy Daily.

Department spokesman Craig Stevens said only that it is "certainly possible" that Bush will take steps to create an interim site.

"As we move forward with expanding nuclear power in this country, we're going to have to be creative, yet safe, in how we deal with spent nuclear fuel," Stevens said.

But Energy Department sources familiar with the issue said that legislation the agency is drafting for the White House includes creation of an interim site. Bush may allude to the proposal in his State of the Union speech tonight.

The move is among several under discussion to speed up the repository program, which has suffered budget and legal setbacks.

The idea of an interim site has been pitched before in various forms because Yucca - the only site the government is studying to deposit high-level nuclear waste - is not likely to open until 2012 at the earliest. Critics say it could be much later, and might not ever open.

In 2004 a 16-member panel of nuclear industry, environmental and government experts proposed two government above-ground "backup" sites, one in the eastern United States and one in the West. Separately, a private group of nuclear power utilities has pushed for an interim waste storage site on the Goshute Indian reservation in Utah, although several utilities have pulled support in the last few months.

Yucca is an obvious place for an interim waste site because the waste is supposed to go there for permanent burial. But federal law prohibits an interim site at Yucca, so Congress would have to change the statute.

Also, during the 2000 election campaign, Bush said he opposed using Yucca for interim storage.

Energy Daily also reported that Bush may ask Congress to bury small amounts of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain as part of a demonstration. But Stevens disputed that report.

"There are currently no plans for a demonstration project at Yucca Mountain," Stevens said.

Bush is expected to ask Congress to take Yucca "off-budget" this year, a step that would effectively make it more difficult for Congress to curtail Yucca development by cutting its annual budgets. That step would give the Energy Department more access to an $18 billion Yucca waste fund, which has been fed by ratepayers of electricity generated by nuclear power plants.

Bush is expected to refer to nuclear power expansion plans in his address tonight, although not in detailed terms.

A spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top trade group, would not comment directly on the interim storage proposal. She said the industry wants the government to haul away the high-level waste piling up at nuclear plants "at the earliest possible time."

She added that the government "must maintain its strong commitment to the Yucca Mountain repository."

The prospects for the Energy Department's nuclear waste legislation appears unlikely to win approval in an election year. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said any interim site would be dangerous because waste shipments risk accidents and terrorist attacks.

"That's true of transportation to Yucca Mountain, or to any possible interim site," Reid said in a statement. "Nuclear waste should be stored the safest way possible - on site in dry casks."

Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@lasvegassun.com.