Spent Fuel Disposal: Pauses, Possibilities, and Progress

摘要

The United States has not abided by the federal law that codified US policy for spent fuel management and disposal. That law, of course, is the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982, as amended. At the recent Nuclear Energy Insider Nuclear Decommissioning and Used Fuel Strategy Summit, Steve Nesbit, Director, Nuclear Policy and Support at Duke Energy, pointed out several “deviations” from this law, which are well known to readers of this publication. Nesbit also noted that the balance in the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF) as of September 30, 2017 (including interest) was $40.3 billion, even though payments to that fund by nuclear power generators ended in 2014 after a federal court ruling that ordered the Department of Energy (DOE) to stop collecting the fund since there is no nuclear waste program. The NWPA was passed in 1982, yet no spent fuel has been moved off reactor sites in the US. Congress has not appropriated any funds for Yucca Mountain, or for consolidated storage since 2010. Because of government inaction, the federal government pays about $800 million each year out of the taxpayer- funded Judgment Fund to reimburse utilities for their costs of continue to store spent fuel at the reactor sites.