MRMTC's Spring Meeting will take place at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Scottsdale Resort on May 19

Since last month's newsletter, registration for the Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee's (MRMTC) Spring Meeting has been launched. If you are a member of the MRMTC, or are planning to attend the Spring Meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, please register for the meeting through the 2020 Annual Meeting of the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum (NTSF) registration page. Unless you plan on attending the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (TRMTC) Meeting or the TRANSCOM Training, you should plan on arriving on Monday, May 18. There will be a luncheon for the MRMTC, TRMTC, and the other state regional groups (SRG) starting at 11:45 AM on Tuesday, May 19. At the luncheon, attendees will be able to hear reports from the Department of Energy (DOE) and other federal agencies. 

The lunch session will be followed by the MRMTC Spring Meeting from 1:45 - 5:30 PM. The preliminary agenda for the meeting includes a tribal briefing explaining who the different Tribes in the Midwest are, where their lands are, and how states might engage them in radioactive waste transportation planning. There will also be discussions about preparations for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program Exercise that will be taking place in Moberly, Missouri, in September. Additionally, one can expect a continuation of conversations that began at the last MRMTC Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana. For example, the committee will hear how preparations for possible licensee shipments of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) by 2023 are going. On a related note, late last month, committee-member Kelly Horn of Illinois participated in a panel at the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM) Spent Fuel Seminar entitled "Transportation of Spent Fuel, Ready by 2023?" Attendees of the Spring Meeting will be able to hear about this panel and other committee-related activities and events. 

Finally, the DOE Transportation Emergency Preparedness Program (TEPP) and the Colorado State Patrol Hazardous Materials Section are offering a Radiation Specialist Course in Arvada, Colorado, on the week of April 20. If you are interested in attending this training, please click this link. CSG Midwest may be able to assist with travel expenses if you are an MRMTC member or other Midwestern state representative. Please reach out to Lisa Janairo for more information regarding travel expenses. 

For Canada's Nuclear Waste Repositories, One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

Recently, there have been some major developments in the efforts to create two deep-geologic repositories (DGR) in Canada. First, the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) announced late last month that it has narrowed down the contenders to host the nation's SNF DGR to just two communities. They are the municipality of South Bruce in southern Ontario and the township of Ignace in northwest Ontario. The NWMO is no longer considering the township of Huron-Kinloss, also in southern Ontario. There were 22 sites under consideration when the search was launched. 

The eventual repository will need about 1,500 acres of land according to the NWMO. The potential Ignace site is on "Crown land," which effectively means it is owned by the Canadian government. Three boreholes have been drilled in Ignace, with another one being drilled, and plans for two more to be drilled soon. These boreholes will allow the NWMO to test groundwater and rock samples as part of the siting deliberation. 

SNF at the Bruce Power Plant in southern Ontario. Photo courtesy of Nick Vyfschaft / Global News

The proposed South Bruce site is on private land, but the NWMO has agreements with landowners to buy 1,300 acres either outright or if the site is selected. Drilling on three boreholes, 900 m deep and 95 mm in diameter, is planned to start at the South Bruce site soon. The NWMO plans to spend $250 to $500 million in the coming years to characterize the two sites. After site characterizations are completed, local approval, including from indigenous communities, will be sought. Canada expects to make a final siting decision by 2023. 

Exchange Monitor  has more on the NWMO's proposed DGR. 

Second, its back to the drawing board for Ontario Power Generation (OPG). The utility's proposed low- and intermediate-level DGR near Kincardine, Ontario, was effectively killed late last week. In 2013, OPG made an agreement with the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) that they would not build a DGR without the SON's approval. The proposed DGR would be on SON land at OPG's Bruce nuclear complex. The SON was not consulted when the Bruce nuclear complex was originally built. On January 31, 2020, after several years of studies, protests, and consultations, the SON voted 1,058 to 170 against the DGR. 

Find more details in the Toledo Blade. 

The defeat of OPG's proposed DGR is a victory for environmentalists and legislators from the Great Lakes region. The proposed site was less than one mile from the shores of Lake Huron, a Great Lake and major source of drinking water and natural resources for Michigan and other Great Lakes states. As a result, there was intense opposition from groups on both sides of the border, as well as bipartisan support in the Michigan Legislature for resolutions opposing the DGR. It remains to be seen whether the NWMO will rethink its decision to consider the South Bruce site for Canada's SNF repository. Last month, U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters and U.S. Reps. Dan Kildee and John Moolenaar, all from Michigan, introduced S. Res. 470: "A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the President and the Secretary of State should ensure that the Government of Canada does not permanently store nuclear waste in the Great Lakes Basin."  You can read Sen. Stabenow's press release here . 

In related news from Michigan legislators, State Sen. Dale Zorn recently introduced S. Con. Res. 19, "to urge the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to fulfill their obligation to establish a permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste." Representing an area that includes the Fermi Nuclear Power Plant, Sen. Zorn's resolution calls on the federal government to fulfill its obligation to remove SNF from sites like Fermi. 

Also in the Michigan Legislature, State Rep. Jon Hoadley has introduced HB 5377, which would create a Citizen's Advisory Panel to advise stakeholders and minimize risks in the process of decommissioning nuclear power plants. Rep. Hoadley's press release has more details. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Prepares for Future of Nuclear Energy

The NRC has proposed a new rule called "Emergency Preparedness for Small Modular Reactors and Other New Technologies." The NRC's current emergency preparedness program only pertains to large, light-water cooled reactors. According to DOE, small modular reactors (SMRs) offer advantages over previous generations of nuclear reactors, such as smaller size, less capital investment, geographic versatility, and incremental power additions. The NRC's proposed rule is one of the first steps in implementing the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA). The NRC is seeking public comment on the proposed rule. Further information about providing public comment can be found here. 

Thank you to Erica Bickford for highlighting this story. 

In other news of emergency preparedness, cell phone users across the province of Ontario received an erroneous alert about OPG's Pickering plant about 30 miles east of Toronto. The text message said there had been no abnormal leak of activity from the plant. Less than an hour later, OPG apologized for sending the texts. The error received strong condemnation from the area's mayors. 

Reuters has more information. 

Several Groups Express Opposition to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Rail Shipments

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recently submitted a formal comment to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) saying "the risks of catastrophic LNG releases in accidents is too great not to have operational controls in place before large blocks of tank cars and unit trains proliferate." This comment came after President Trump signed a 2019 Executive Order instructing PHMSA to create regulations allowing the shipment of LNG by rail. Supporters of the executive order argue that it will allow gas to be sold in markets lacking pipelines, like New England. 

The NTSB said that the current rail tankers that would be used for LNG shipments, DOT113C-120W cars, were involved in 14 accidents between 1980 and 2017, and that the shells were breached in three of those incidents. Other groups opposing the proposed rule change include 16 state attorneys general, the National Association of State Fire Marshals, and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. President Trump's executive order requires the rule(s) to be finalized by May. 

EnergyWire  has more details. 

If the rule(s) move forward, there could be implications for the transport of SNF by train. The NRC conducted fire studies to evaluate the ability of casks to withstand long duration, extreme fire events under the conditions experienced in real-world accidents (specifically, the Baltimore Tunnel Fire in 2001 and the Macarthur Maze Fire in 2007). The NRC may need to add to those studies to consider the case of an accident involving a SNF shipment and a unit train carrying LNG. 

Savannah River Site (SRS) Celebrates New Milestone

Savannah River Site, near Aiken, South Carolina. Photo courtesy of DOE

Workers with DOE Office of 

Environmental Management (EM) recently modified the 1,000th storage position of vitrified waste canisters. These 10 feet tall, 2 feet in diameter canisters are filled with high-level radioactive sludge that is mixed with glass, heated to greater than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and poured into the canisters where they cool to a solidified glass. These canisters can now be double stacked in two storage buildings, doubling capacity to 4,524 positions per building, and saving $100 million by avoiding the costs of building another storage area. Members of the MRMTC were able to get a behind-the-scenes look at SRS' Defense Waste Processing Facility during their tour of the site in conjunction with the June 1997 meeting in Augusta, Georgia. 

The DOE-EM Newsletter has further details. 

In other news of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) canisters, new experiments have shown that chemical interactions between stainless steel canisters and their glass or ceramic contents may corrode slightly faster than thought when exposed to groundwater. This corrosion could expose radioactive material stored in the canisters. This research, published in the online journal   Nature Materials,  was conducted by Xiaolei Guo, a materials scientist at Ohio State University. In the experiment, stainless steel was pressed against glass or ceramic and submerged in a saltwater solution. 

William Ebert, a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), urged caution when interpreting the results, saying that submerging materials in saltwater in a lab is very different than the small amount of groundwater a steel canister may encounter in a DGR. Nevertheless, the researchers are studying the option of coating the inside of canisters to put a barrier between the canister and its contents. 

For more information, check out ScienceNews.