Nuclear Waste Flashcards
Nuclear Waste Overview
(1) Not really waste, it can be reprocessed (France does this)
* dozens of applications
(2) A lot of ways to covert the stuff
* Vitrification - turn radioactive material into glass
(3) Industry nomenclature: “used nuclear fuel” or “spent nuclear fuel”
Low-Level Nuclear Waste
(1) X-Rays, TSA Stuff
(2) Heavily regulated, but not subject to same stringencies
(3) 4 places in USA that accept low-level nuclear waste
What is High Level Nuclear Waste?
(1) Rods that come out of nuclear power plants (currently 85 tons)
(2) When plants were first designed, 20-30 years of storage in water cooling pools in plants because we thought we would know what to do with it by then.
How Nuclear Waste Storage Started
How it started: Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.
Builds a framework for how to tackle this problem.
Four Components
(1) Nuclear Waste Fund (.1 cent for every kilowatt that you generate) (currently sitting at 18 billion dollars)
(2) The National Repository (money contributed towards this, to deal with the nuclear waste)
* Thought that the best idea was to put this underground, where it was geologically contained.
* But, when the Yucca mountain project died, the nuclear power plants sued and then the fund is no longer being paid into.
(3) The DOE takes title in 1998
* Requires civilian energy companies to sign a standard contract where the DOE will take title to the waste and remove the waste from the facilities.
(4) Utilities agree to keep waste onsite until DOE collects it.
How Nuclear Waste Storage is going
(Yucca Mountain)
Potential Sites: SC, TX, WA
Yucca Mountain chosen because it is politically weakest
(1) Congress amends the NWPA to say that Yucca Mountain is the place for nuclear waste (the Screw Nevada Act)
(2) Congress starts spending money to build the site (10 billion dollars in)
* People sue like crazy.
* Clinton administration is willing to slow walk to project
(3) GWB wants to get this thing going
* Wants to get it licensed by the end of his term.
(4) The DOE is going to do all the operating of the plant & the NRC (pretend to be independent) is establishing the technical requirements
(5) Then by 2007 the DOE applies for the license to the NRC
* Now the NRC has to provide an answer within three years.
(6) But, in 2008, both Clinton and Obama promise that they will kill Yucca Mountain.
(7) Obama zero outs funding for the NRC to review the application of the DOE
- And, tells the director of the DOE to withdraw the application
- And, puts Harry Reid crony as the chairman of the NRC
- And, the most important part, Obama fires all the people working on Yucca mountain in NV.
(8) Legal aspects of this
* Withdrawal – DOE puts forward motion to withdraw (and, say, we think you should allow us to withdraw this with prejudice).
- ASLB – says we can’t withdraw it
- Then, appealed to the NRSC, and the Reid crony sits on the appeal
- Then go to DC Circuit, and Kavanaugh goes off.
- And, even if we get yucca mountain going, we are going to need another one (75,000 capacity at yucca)
How Nuclear Waste Storage is going
(Cooling Pools)
(1) Cooling pools are now pretty much all filled up.
How Nuclear Waste Storage is going
(Dry Cask)
Places to store nuclear waste after about 10 years
(1) Not really well secured, but
* Each cask is 80 tons, two feet of concrete, built to survive airplane crash, and well past radioactivity where it wouldn’t create a chain reaction.
(2) Now, this is what we do when pools overflow.
(3) But, these casks are not transportable at all! And so basically, they just cannot be transported to Yucca mountain.
Mounting DOE Liability
(1) DOE has to pay for the dry casks (taxpayers)
(2) Mounting DOE liability year after year (not taking title)
(3) Most litigation is about whether or not the nuclear companies mitigated costs properly.
Best Option
(1) Reprocessing the waste
* You can reduce the waste to be 1/20th of the amount.
* But, it is hella expensive, even more than getting fresh uranium
* And, the US states that re-enriching the waste is supposedly in violation of the non-proliferation agreements.
Where does NEPA fit in?
The Waste Confidence Decision
(1) The NRC did a single EIS for all the waste for all the nuclear powerplants in the nation
(2) Basis? An assertion that Yucca Mountain will be done by 2008 & 2009. Version 1.0
(3) Version 2.0, well, I bet we can have Yucca Mountain done by 2025
(4) Version 3.0, well, maybe we can’t actually provide a date.
- Obama Administration said that we would have a repository in 2048.
Liability for Nuclear Accidents
Price-Anderson Act
- Capped the liability at 500 million dollar for the nuclear power plant
- Clear example of a negative externality. Operator is unlikely to be properly incentivized to mitigate against the potential consequences
TX v. NRC
Only plant operators are supposed to be able to have interim storage.
Supreme Court will need to decide between restrictive reading (5th Circuit) or flexible reading (NRC)
Tex. doesn’t want flexible reading because they know that’s going to become the permanent storage.
