Editorials

The nuclear power option looks better and better as no highly promising alternative fuels are in sight and the Democratic Congress stubbornly continues to balk on action to boost domestic oil production and refining.

But there is a problem with the swing to nuclear, too, relating to the disposal of spent nuclear fuel.

A recent push to build new United States nuclear plants is forcing considerations of alternatives to Yucca Mountain geologic repository in Nevada for spent nuclear fuel. Options include recycling nuclear fuel and opening interim storage facilities.

Both options could play critical roles in any American nuclear power renaissance, said Jack Spencer, a Heritage Foundation research fellow. Opening the Yucca Mountain repository, however, continues to be essential.

About 20 percent of U.S. electricity is generated from 104 nuclear power reactors, and these reactors in turn have generated over 56,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel. Commonly referred to as waste, this spent fuel has the potential to be a valuable resource.

Yucca Mountain continues to be the first option for spent nuclear fuel disposal, Spencer said. Politics has made that impossible to date even though no scientific, safety or technological reason prevents it. Floods of data, generated by numerous sources including both private and public entities, establish the safety of such disposal. More studies are being conducted.

A second option is for the U.S. to recycle (reprocess) spent nuclear fuel, which still contains usable fuel that could be recovered and “used again” for future power generation. This cold be achieved through numerous methods, it is noted. Some technologies already have been commercialized abroad, and others are being researched and developed.

A third option is for the spent fuel to be stored on an interim basis at shorter-term storage facilities. Allowing spent fuel to decay over time decreases the heat load, making it easier to store for the long term. Short term storage also would provide time to develop new technologies that would improve long term management.

Yet in every scenario, Spencer pointed out, the Yucca Mountain repository is critical to long-term success of nuclear power in the U.S. Some of the byproducts of nuclear fission will last a long time so a place is needed to store it safety where it would remain under U.S. control after the facility is closed.

Yucca Mountain, however, already is over a decade behind schedule and probably will not open until about 2010, primarily because of politics.

The U.S. Department of Energy could take an immediate step toward opening Yucca by submitting a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as soon as possible. Spencer said such action is critical

Americans want energy that is clean, safe and affordable and nuclear energy can meet all of those criteria.

Yucca Mountain looked like the solution at one point but politics has interfered. Now it has become just an important part of the solution.

Now considered a more practical and comprehensive approach is including a combination of interim storage, recycling and geological storage. And try to keep politics out of the way.

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