Overview of Licensing
Why The Transport and Storage of Deadly Waste is a Threat
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT plans on transporting high-level nuclear waste through America’s densely populated cities and small towns, to be stored at the surface in West Texas and southeast New Mexico; a region called the Permian Basin. This highly radioactive material is spent nuclear fuel (SNF) or high-level nuclear waste. It will travel in and out of our ports by barge and through our cities by rail to the Permian Basin - home to the most productive oil field in the world and the center of the United States energy independence.
Not only does Permian Basin oil and gas bolster our economy and national security, but this area is also home to vast wind farms, extensive solar panel projects, and agricultural commodities that contribute to America’s prosperity. For this, and many other reasons, we contend that transporting the deadliest form of nuclear waste into the Permian Basin amounts to malfeasance.
TWO APPLICATIONS are currently under technical review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The applications seek licenses to store high-level nuclear waste until the government comes up with a permanent solution. The applicants are private companies promoting job diversity and revenue sharing. Based upon our analysis, having private entities assume the federal government’s responsibilities and the method by which they are to carry them out fails on both legal and technical grounds.
The Legal Challenges: (1) according to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) cannot issue a license for interim storage of high-level nuclear waste unless a permanent repository is permitted. Otherwise, any temporary site could likely become a de facto permanent site; and (2) the NWPA requires that a host state consent and be financially compensated if they provide consent. Here, neither of the two legal requirements have been met. The NRC does NOT have a permanent repository and it does NOT have the consent necessary to license an interim site.
The Technical Challenges:
A. Likely contamination of groundwater, aquifers, and subsurface hydrology
Data from independent experts show that the proposed sites lie in the center of a geologic basin with groundwater present. Although the license applicants misconstrue the facts in order to show the region as dry, there are actually three major aquifers present: the Ogallala, Antlers, and Gatuna formations. These overlie the Dockum Group, an additional aquifer in the immediate area. The presence of hundreds of water wells and windmills within a radius of the sites further contradicts the “dry site” classification. This, alone, disqualifies siting in the Permian Basin.
B. Mineral extraction activities in the region
The applicants are dismissive of oil and gas activity in the region and describe the area of their sites as played out. In contrast, Petra, a petroleum industry GIS-based software, shows thousands of productive oil wells within their area. The International Atomic Energy Agency, of which the U.S. is a member, advises that away from reactor storage should be single-use and avoid land with exploitable mineral and energy resources. The presence of America’s most productive oil field, alone, disqualifies siting in the Basin.
C. Potential subsurface instability including seismicity
In addition to the geologic hazards of casing integrity due to unmarked, abandoned wells and instability caused by potash mining, the sites are in the least stable region of the heavily faulted Central Basin Platform and the applicants fail to acknowledge their sites are disqualified by the current tectonic state around them.
D. The high likelihood of harm due to malicious acts, terrorism, and human error
Energy Security Analysts advise of the economic dimension of energy terrorism. Terrorists seek to destabilize energy industry supply capabilities because it is a commodity affected by even a short-term delay in delivery. Siting the country’s SNF in the Permian Basin creates a massive economic vulnerability.
E. Significant concerns regarding the transportation of SNF
The primary and secondary cargo shipped on rail lines in the Permian Basin is oilfield and agricultural commodities, respectively. The logistics of sharing the rails with SNF combined with the overwhelming increase of rail accidents in the region warrant legitimate concerns that a rail accident or derailment, even absent a radiological release, would severely disrupt the transport of oilfield and agricultural commodities.