New nuclear technology is hostage to an old problem

This year began as what could have been the year in which a new generation of nuclear power plants gained acceptance in the United States as a source of energy that isn’t tied to imported fossil fuels.

And then came the earthquake and tsunami. What was a tragedy of unfathomable proportions for Japan reverberated throughout the world. And one of those reverberations was felt in the nuclear power industry.

It may not be the death blow for new nuclear power that Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were for old nuclear power, but what happened in Japan cannot be ignored.

It is not so much Japan’s power plants themselves that give pause. They represent old technology and have little in common with plants that would be built today. But what almost all nuclear power plants have in common is that they produce nuclear waste. Indeed, some of the most vexing control problems in Japan and some of the most severe ecological damage will come from the failure to maintain cooling functions for spent rods in water-filled cooling pools at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex.

Before any progress can be expected to be made in developing new nuclear-powered electricity generators in the United States, the question of what to do with radioactive waste remains.

Today, some 70,000 tons of waste from U.S. plants is temporarily stored at 131 sites. More than 2,000 tons of additional waste is generated yearly.

Pennsylvania, home of the first commercial nuclear power plant at nearby Shippingport, is second behind Illinois in the amount of stored nuclear fuel, with 6,446 tons. Ohio is well down the list with 1,170 tons.

The vast majority of fuel in the United States remains in cooling pools, a preliminary step before the fuel can be transferred to dry casks.

Hazards Can’t be ignored

Despite government and industry assurances that this huge amount of material, stored at more than 100 sites, is safe against accidental release of radiation or terrorist attack, Americans have a right to feel uneasy.

That’s because for 30 years, the official government position was that a central storage facility was needed for nuclear waste. Since 1982, American electricity consumers have paid more than $24 billion on their electric bills to finance such a solution. Some $9 billion of that was invested in a proposed repository beneath the Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. All work was halted there last year, however, a testament to the power of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and to Reid’s ability to extract a campaign promise from President Barack Obama. Killing Yucca was very popular with Nevada voters.

It is time for Congress to reassess the abandonment of the Yucca project, which would not solve all the nation’s storage needs, but is the best alternative to the present hodgepodge.

While the Republican-led House is loath to take on any new spending initiative, its members should recognize that it is bad fiscal policy to allow the billions already invested in Yucca to be lost, and that it is bad energy and economic policy to stifle any chance the nation has to pursue new nuclear technology.

Before the nation can find out what’s new, it has to address a problem that has been unanswered for a half century: what to do with old nuclear waste.