With increasing demand for clean, reliable, and safe sources of energy, the conversation around nuclear energy is changing. And so too is the conversation around nuclear waste, even as the country struggles to find a path for the disposal of its spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. From community engagement, to recycling, to existing success around other forms of nuclear waste management, the conversation around nuclear waste has many different angles, and an executive session of the American Nuclear Society’s 2024 Annual Conference in Las Vegas aimed to delve into some of those discussions.

Dear Nevada,

I hope you are doing well. We haven’t talked in a long time. I know you’ve moved on. But you know it’s been harder for me to do that.

Look, I’m sorry. I was forceful at times, and I know that made you feel trapped and caused you to question our relationship—pretty much from the beginning. But you also said some mean and untrue things about me. Your family still HATES me, which stinks, because we have a lot of history together.

Anyhow, just wanted to let you know that, while I might always hold out hope for a chance encounter with you that rekindles that old spark—and I will never part with our memory box—I am finally ready to move on to the next chapter of my life, and I understand that means letting go of you.

Cortez Masto

Titus

The Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act was reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last week by Rep. Dina Titus (D., Nev.). Previous iterations of the bill, designed to prevent the federal government from reviving the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project, have all died in congressional committees.

The bicameral legislation, led by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D., Nev.), would require the secretary of energy to obtain the consent of affected state, local, and tribal governments before making an expenditure from the Nuclear Waste Fund for a nuclear waste repository. The bill is being cosponsored by Sen. Jacky Rosen (D., Nev.) and Reps. Steven Horsford (D., Nev.) and Susie Lee (D., Nev.).

Steven P. Nesbit
president@ans.org

Have you ever been punished for something you didn’t do? It happens to most of us on occasion while growing up, especially if we have siblings. It’s not the end of the world, and it teaches a valuable lesson: Life is not fair. Nevertheless, when it happens, it really rankles you.

The “issue” of nuclear waste provides me with instant recall of those unpleasant childhood memories. Commercial nuclear power plants have been managing low-level waste and used nuclear fuel safely and efficiently since the beginning of the nuclear enterprise. Industry is adept at minimizing, packaging, transporting, and disposing of LLW. Used fuel is stored safely and securely at reactor sites, awaiting disposal.

Forty years ago, nuclear power plant operators entered into contracts with the federal government. The deal was simple. The operators would pay the U.S. government a lot of money, and the government would pick up the relatively small amount of used fuel and dispose of it in a geologic repository, beginning in 1998. The money changed hands, but the used fuel never did.

Weapon systems, research rockets, and artillery were tested on the Tonopah Test Range beginning in 1956. Photo: DOE

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) announced on October 27 that it has completed another of its 2020 priorities—completing the remediation activities on and around the Tonopah Test Range and conveying 70 sites into long-term stewardship. Cleanup of the historic site, located within the Nevada Test and Training Range about 160 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was completed in less than half the time initially estimated, according to the DOE.

Oversight of the 70 remediated sites has now been transferred from the Office of Environmental Management to the DOE’s Office of Legacy Management (LM), which provides long-term surveillance and maintenance of remediated and closed DOE sites. Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar and other representatives from the DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) celebrated the transfer of the sites to LM on October 20.

Oak Ridge, Tenn.–based Navarro Research and Engineering has been awarded a 10-year environmental program services contract worth up to $350 million for cleanup services at the Nevada National Security Site, the Department of Energy announced on June 17. The new contract replaces the current NNSS cleanup contract, also held by Navarro Research and Engineering, which expires on July 31.