The Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (MRMTC) Fall 2022 Meeting will be a little bit different than most Fall meetings. This year, we'll be traveling a little farther north and to a little more picturesque location. Located snugly between the Badlands National Park and the Black Hills National Forest, the MRMTC will be meeting in Rapid City, SD! Because of this more northern location, the meeting will be held earlier than normal, on October 12 - 13. While an agenda is still being developed, the meeting registration and hotel and travel information are available on the MRMTC website. Committee members are encouraged to register and make their travel arrangements ASAP. Any questions about the meeting can be directed to Mitch Arvidson. Come early or stay late to enjoy the wonderful sights around Rapid City! 

As promised in last month's newsletter, the MRMTC would like to introduce you to our newest member! Mark Paulson is the State of Wisconsin's alternate member to the committee and currently serves as the Radiation Protection Section Manager with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS). In 14 years of state service with DHS, Mark has been a radioactive materials license reviewer and inspector, coordinator for radiological emergency response, and supervisor of the Wisconsin-U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Agreement State program.

In other committee news, several resources that had been available on the old MRMTC website have finally been updated and uploaded to the new website. Just in time for a new biennium to begin in a few months, the 2021-2022 Legislative Tracker has all the details you need on Midwestern state and Federal legislation related to radioactive materials transportation, storage, disposal, and nuclear power. If you scroll down to the "Tables" section of the Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Project (MRMTP) Resources page you can now find updated tables with data on operating and shutdown commercial nuclear reactors and spent nuclear fuel (SNF) in storage in the Midwest. The final website improvement is the uploading of meeting summaries, presentations, and other materials from past meetings going back to 1992. These can be found under "Summaries of Committee Meetings" on the MRMTC page. 

Finally, it is with sadness that the MRMTC will be losing a member at the end of this week. Sarah Chaney, Radiation Programs Director with the Indiana Department of Homeland Security will be leaving state service to take a federal contractor position in the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) field. Sarah has been a wonderfully active committee member since July 2021 and we sincerely thank her for her service!

Welcome to the MRMTC Mark! 

Earlier this week, leadership and staff from the four state regional groups (SRGs) and the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (TRMTC) travelled to Cincinnati, OH, to meet with staff from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) and various national laboratories. This group, known as the DOE-NE Transportation Core Group was meeting in-person for the first time since the Summer of 2019. While the Transportation Core Group had met virtually a couple of times in the interim, it was great to be back in-person once again. The purpose of the Transportation Core Group is to discuss, learn, and hear updates about the federal government's integrated waste management system and related projects.

After brief updates from the SRGs and TRMTC, DOE-NE's first update was on the consent-based siting process for federal consolidated interim storage facilities (CISF). DOE-NE expressed appreciation for the responses they received on the request for information (RFI) on the topic and are working their way through the comments and developing next steps. Attendees discussed how "consent" from a host community might not mean there is consent from other levels of government like counties and states and that DOE-NE must consider this as it moves forward. Other topics covered on the first day included nuclear power plant infrastructure evaluations and the history of SNF transportation in the U.S. and abroad (spoiler alert: there's been a lot!).

On day two, attendees learned about the conceptual designs of a federal CISF. Unlike the proposed privates CISFs in west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, a federal CISF would need to be able to accept and store both horizontal and vertical SNF casks of various designs. Other day two topics were DOE railcar (12-axle Atlas and eight-axle Fortis) development, systems analysis of the waste management system, and risk assessment of SNF and high-level radioactive waste (HLW). 

In other National Transportation Stakeholders Forum (NTSF) news, the NTSF Planning Committee met on Wednesday, August 24. In addition to discussing future NTSF webinars and updates on the NTSF ad hoc working groups (AHWG), the Planning Committee considered some lessons learned from past NTSF meetings. While these lessons are still being considered, future NTSF Annual Meeting attendees can probably expect longer breaks between sessions and perhaps a reordering of what events fall on which days. 

Finally, after a much-needed break from the many pandemic-era NTSF webinars, they will be making a triumphant return in the next few weeks. NTSF stakeholders can expect the next webinar to cover the updates to the DOE Order 460.2B which establishes requirements and responsibilities for management of DOE materials transportation. Keep an eye out for more announcements regarding this webinar. 

Attendees, including MRMTC Co-Chair Rodney Pitchford (Illinois), hear an update on consent-based siting from Natalia Saraeva (DOE-NE)

Congressional RadWaste Updates

Over the last few months, the nation's radioactive materials cleanup and transportation projects have received increased scrutiny and interest from Congress. The clearest example of this was the July 13 "Nuclear Waste Cleanup: Research and Development Opportunities for the Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management (EM)" hearing held by the House Committee on Science, Space, & Technology's Energy Subcommittee. The hearing began on a positive note as Rep. Randy Weber (TX) and EM Senior Advisor William "Ike" White observed that the office has completed cleanup at 92 of its 107 sites. 

However, the focus soon turned to concerns about the long timelines and ballooning costs for the remaining sites. A DOE report from February estimates that the remaining cost at just one site, Hanford in Washington state, could cost up to $660 billion. On the other hand, Nathan Anderson with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated the total cost for the 15 remaining sites to be about $500 billion. This large range of estimates shows the difficulty in predicting a final price for the nation's Cold War cleanup efforts. Witnesses said this uncertainty stems from DOE-EM still determining what needs to be cleaned up and what doesn't, high leadership turnover, and confusion over research and development (R&D) developments. Finally, DOE's Contract and Project Management for the National Nuclear Security Administration and Office of Environmental Management has recently been placed on the GAO's High-Risk List. 

Nuclear Newswire has more coverage of the Congressional hearing. 

Despite these concerns, Congress recognizes the importance of the nation's nuclear waste programs is poised to increase funding to DOE in 2023. Earlier this Summer, the House passed the 2023 Energy and Water Appropriations Act which would provide $53 million for DOE's Integrated Waste Management Systems, $35 million more than what was provided in 2022. Overall, DOE-NE would receive $1.8 billion for its civilian nuclear energy and waste programs under the House bill, about $110 million more than the White House's budget request. 

Meanwhile, the Senate's version would provide about $1.76 billion. Both versions would agree with the White House's request to move funding from the Nuclear Waste Fund Oversight program's Nuclear Waste Disposal account to DOE-NE's Integrated Waste Management Systems subprogram. The House and Senate versions must now be reconciled. You can follow progress on these bills and many others on CSG Midwest's 2021-2022 Legislative Tracker. 

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Hangs In Balance of War

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, sent millions fleeing the country, and destroyed large swaths of land. Also caught in the crossfire is Europe's largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia. The plant, located in southeastern Ukraine, has been under Russian control since early March. The Russian occupiers have kept Ukrainian workers operating the plant, reportedly for long hours and at gunpoint. 

Russia has used the plant to store artillery and launch bombardments of the city of Nikopol across the Dnipro River. Russia has accused Ukraine of shelling the plant, damaging a SNF dry storage area at the complex. By early August, only three of the plant's six reactors were operational, reducing to two after shelling on August 5. On August 25, the last two operational reactors were completely disconnected from the Ukrainian grid for the first time in its history. They were reconnected the next day but Russia has announced its plans to connect the plant to Russia's grid instead. 

This week, a 14-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including its chief Rafael Grossi, set out on a mission to assess the security and safety of the plant. They arrived today and nearby shelling has forced one of the two working reactors to shut down. The one remaining reactor continues to operate in order to supply energy to the plant itself. Grossi was seen leaving the plant later in the day but some of the mission members plan on staying until September 3. 

The New York Times (article 2), Reuters, and CNN are covering events at the plant. 

Supreme Court Ruling Could Upend SNF Storage Sites

On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act does not give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to regulate power plants' greenhouse gas emissions. The ruling stated that the EPA had violated the "major questions" doctrine and had not received specific congressional authority to regulate the plants' emissions, which is an issue of major national significance. 

Now, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and anti-nuclear groups are citing the ruling in an attempt to block Waste Control Specialists' proposed SNF CISF in Andrews County, TX. They argue that the NRC does not have specific congressional direction to license privately-owned storage facilities. In response, the NRC argues that they have "longstanding" authority to license such sites, stemming all the way back to the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. 

AP News and The Dallas Morning News have more details. 

The Death and (Possible) Resurrection of American SNF Recycling

There are some that would argue that nuclear "waste" isn't really waste at all. The World Nuclear Association says that approximately 97% of the material in SNF can be recycled and used as fuel in certain types of reactors. Plenty of countries already recycle their SNF, most notably France (1,700 metric tons/year) and Russia (400 metric tons/year). If this 97% claim is correct, the U.S. could reuse 1,940 metric tons/year as opposed to on-site storage. So, why don't we? 

The answer lies in a 1977 decision by the administration of President Jimmy Carter to indefinitely defer the reprocessing of U.S. SNF. Carter served on a Navy nuclear submarine and studied nuclear physics in college but opposed SNF recycling because of the high costs and worries about nuclear weapon proliferation. 

Slash Gear takes a deeper dive. 

This history has not dissuaded some entrepreneurs from seeking profit in SNF recycling. Curio is a 10-person startup company that initially sought to develop advanced nuclear reactors. The founders saw that that space was already crowded but saw opportunities in the field of reprocessing. Curio now has a major player acting as their CEO, Ed McGinnis. As a former Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at DOE, McGinnis knows how intractable the nuclear waste question can be in the U.S. Curio aims to partner with DOE and says its proposed commercial plant would have a capacity of 4,000 metric tons, cost $5 billion to build, and be the size of an NFL stadium. 

What makes Curio different from existing recycling organizations is its "NuCycle" chemical process. The company is still "refining" its chemical process but the idea is to never separate out pure plutonium. This aspect of the existing plutonium uranium reduction extraction (PUREX) process is the main nuclear weapon proliferation concern expressed by people like former President Carter. 

This article by CNBC has more information on Curio and McGinnis.