Tag Archives: nuclear waste storage at nuclear power plants

Anti-Nuclear Protests in India

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Agitations against the Kudankulam nuclear plant broke out in June 2019.  Villages around the contentious reactors moved a resolution to put a stop to the government’s plans to construct an Away From Reactor (AFR) facility on the premises of the nuclear power plant.  The AFR is a storage unit meant to store spent fuel generated at the two nuclear plants in Kudankulam… While resolutions passed at four villages –  Kavalkinar, Vadakankulam, Perumanal  and Kudankulam  were recorded by district authorities, a similar move in the village of Vijayapathi was stopped. The decision led to protests in the village and was forcefully dispersed by the police. …

A public hearing regarding the AFR scheduled for July 10, 2019 was recently postponed indefinitely. A look at the circular shows that only two villages were invited – Kudankulam and Vijayapathi. Activists allege that this was an intentional attempt to shut down dissent against the proposed facility. 

The resolutions included – opposition to collection of nuclear waste in Kudankulam, demand to stop construction of an AFR facility and demand to permanently shut down the plant. Opposition parties and activists had urged the Centre to come out with a detailed plan for setting up a permanent deep geological repository and drop the plan of a proposed Away From Reactor facility.   “This entire exercise is meant to create storage for spent fuel and an AFR is only a temporary solution till the government finds land to build a deep geological repository,” explains Sundarrajan. “But across the country, no state is ready to risk giving land for permanent disposal of nuclear waste. So, residents fear that this will used as an excuse by the government to make the AFR a permanent storage space.”

Excerpts from Priyanka Thirumurthy , Protests break out in TN village over proposed facility in Kudankulam nuclear plant, the newsminute.com, June 29, 2019

Scattered Nuclear Waste: 88 000MT, 33 States, 75 Plants

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The broad coalition of labor unions, state public service commissioners, clean energy organizations, and energy trade associations told U.S. House and Senate leaders in a December 4, 2018 letter: “It is time for the federal government to meet its statutory and contractual obligations. Utilities and their electricity customers have done their part.”

The letter notes that the Nuclear Waste Fund—a U.S. Treasury account collected via a fee charged to electric ratepayers over 30 years—today holds a balance of more than $40 billion. The fund is mostly unused, owing to paralysis of the Yucca Mountain project, and it continues to accumulate interest of about $1.7 billion a year from investments in Treasury securities.

About $7.4 billion in damages have now also been paid out from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund to utilities, which have filed lawsuits against the Department of Energy (DOE) since 2000, seeking compensation for defaulting on a standard contract and missing the deadline to begin disposing of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel as required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. To date, 40 suits have been settled and an additional 57 cases have been resolved, a November 2018 special report from the DOE’s Office of Inspector General noted.

The coalition includes major industry trade groups the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the American Public Power Association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and the Edison Electric Institute—along with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which is a group of state regulators….According to the NEI, the inventory of used fuel in temporary storage at 75 reactor sites scattered across 33 states has now grown to more than 80,000 metric tons.

Exceprts from Sonal Patel, Industry Groups to Congress: Inaction on Nuclear Waste Not an Option, Power Magazine,  Dec. 6, 2018

The Future of Nuclear Waste: Czech Republic

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Czech plans for dealing with nuclear waste have been put under the spotlight once again thanks to a European Commission warning calling for the country to outline its plans for deal with nuclear waste. The Czech Republic was last week one of five states which the Commission said had failed to pass on their long-term nuclear waste plans by the original deadline of August 2015. The other countries include, somewhat ironically, largely non-nuclear Austria, Italy, Portugal, and Croatia.

The Czech Republic has around 10,000 tonnes of high radioactive nuclear waste, mostly stemming from the spent fuel of its nuclear power plants which begin operating in the mid-1980s, but also from other civil activities. The spent fuel is stored on site at nuclear power plants but the barrels containing it will wear out long before the contents become safe.

The Czech Republic set out a strategy to deal with high radioactive nuclear waste already in 2002 with the main focus on finding a deep storage site. The preliminary search has been focused on seven localities which are reckoned to be geologically suitable as well as near the Dukovany nuclear power plant. But there have been vociferous public protests at most of the sites causing the current government to back down and promise that no steps will be taken in the face of opposition. Even so, a timeline for choosing a deep repository has already been set with the selection of a site due to take place in 2025, construction started in 2050, and the final facility ready by 2065.

But the aged 2002 strategy is now being updated with public consultation part of the process. Environmentalists on one side argue that the existing framework focused primarily on the search for a deep repository should be overhauled and that the country should take its time and keep its options option with technological advancement likely offering other options for radioactive waste in the near future. 

Excerpts from BRUSSELS CALLS FOR CZECH STRATEGY FOR RADIOACTIVE WASTE, Radio Prague, July 24, 2017