Panel urges government to establish "consent-based" approach to nuclear waste disposal

Monday, 30 January 2012 00:24

News & Events - Engineering News

January 30, 2012

The disposal of nuclear waste is a highly controversial issue, and a commission recently ruled the U.S. would have to adopt a "consent-based approach" after other routes failed.

U.S. lawmakers have struggled over the past few decades to establish a proper method for disposing of waste from the nation's nuclear power plants. Officials have been thwarted in their attempts to store such waste in the Nevada desert and other areas of the U.S. With the public anxiously eying the nuclear sector in the wake of the reactor meltdowns at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, crafting a new policy is riddled with complexities and obstacles.

The federal government appointed a commission to study the varied methods it could employ to dispose of nuclear waste, The New York Times reports. After examining the matter for more than two years, the panel of chosen experts said that the government would have to develop a consent-based approach because of Congress' failure to resolve the issue.

The panel determined that earning local consent at prospective nuclear waste disposal sites is critical. Scientists and other experts whom Department of Energy officials appointed to the panel asserted that obtaining the support of local residents in designated areas would help prevent a recurrence of what happened in Nevada in 2010.

Officials had proposed disposing of nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, which is located approximately 100 miles outside of Las Vegas. However, before any of the nation's spent fuel rods could be transported to the site, a fierce outcry from local residents ultimately spurred the government to abandon such plans, leaving its future waste disposal program in doubt.

In its findings, the panel noted that nations such as France, Finland, Spain and Sweden had successfully negotiated with local communities when establishing sites for nuclear waste disposal. In fact, the experts affirmed that the willingness of local communities surrounding such nuclear disposal sites was a crucial factor in the decision-making process.

The panel, known as the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, also made a number of other recommendations in its assessment. For example, the panel argued that the federal government should relieve the DOE of its oversight powers in nuclear waste disposal. The panel urged officials to create a federally chartered corporation whose sole duty would be to regulate and supervise the process.

While the government mulls the panel's findings, the nuclear industry came out in support of its proposals. Officials from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, the American Public Power Association and Edison Electric Institute all endorsed the panel's eight recommendations.

What's more, they argued the government should give a number of the panel's suggestions high priority, including the creation of a congressionally chartered federal corporation dedicated to implementing the waste management program. They also endorsed the panel's recommendation that the government promptly develop consolidated interim storage facilities.

Public perception of the nuclear energy sector tends to ebb and flow, according to experts. Following the core meltdown at the nuclear facility on Three Mile Island, for example, public sentiment plummeted. It rebounded steadily over the next decades, but Japan's ongoing cleanup efforts at Fukushima Daiichi have prompted a fresh wave of criticism and skepticism.

Nuclear energy represented 19.6 percent of the nation's total electricity generation in 2010, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. The panel urged the government to quickly act on the matter, describing the nuclear waste disposal quandary as urgent.

"This generation has a fundamental, ethical obligation to avoid burdening future generations with the entire task of finding a safe, permanent solution for managing hazardous nuclear materials they had no part in creating," according to the panel.