- Email: [email protected]
Investing in a permanent and sustainable nuclear waste disposal solution
Progress in Nuclear Energy 108 (2018) 474–479
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Progress in Nuclear Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pnucene
Investing in a permanent and sustainable nuclear waste disposal solution a,∗
Kayla H. Yano , Keyou S. Mao a b c
a,∗∗
b
T
c
, Janelle P. Wharry , D. Marshall Porterfield
School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering, 701 West Stadium Avenue, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2045, USA School of Nuclear Engineering, Purdue University, 400 Central Drive, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2017, USA Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering, Purdue University, 225 South University Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2093, USA
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Nuclear power Nuclear waste Office of Nuclear Energy Nuclear Waste Policy Act Federal funding Radioactive materials
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act was enacted in 1982, tasking the federal government with providing a permanent, sustainable disposal solution for highly radioactive waste from the existing fleet of light-water reactors (LWR). However, after 30 years and shifts in direction, the U.S. remains uncommitted to a plan for tackling the accumulating waste. Investment in research and development at national laboratories and universities largely focuses on advanced and small modular reactor designs and enabling technologies. While these designs would improve nuclear fuel efficiency and reduce waste, the existing problem of LWR waste looms. This problem will become further exacerbated as LWRs near the end of their licensed lives and begin to shut down, requiring disposal of spent fuel and structural materials. Here we show a critical need for strategic direction, planning, and investment into developing a sustainable, permanent solution for disposal of radioactive waste produced by the existing nuclear reactor fleet.
1. Introduction In, 2017 the World Energy Outlook proposed a scenario for reducing CO2 emissions to sustainable levels by 2040 (International Energy Agency (IEA, 2017)). Discussed in this proposed scenario are a wide range of low-carbon energy sources, and as with other reports (Grimes and Nuttall, 2010; IPCC, 2014; Systems, 1980), it includes nuclear energy as a source providing 15-20% of the world's energy over the next 20 years. In order to reach this share of the future energy portfolio, concerns amongst the public and the nuclear community with regards to nuclear energy waste management and disposal (WM&D) (Sanders and Sanders, 2016; Systems, 1980) must be resolved. These concerns have driven a recent research and development (R&D) focus on the design, safety, materials integrity, and regulatory issues for advanced reactor designs that utilize nuclear fuel more efficiently, as well as for small modular reactors that reduce on-site construction and enhance fuel security. Nevertheless, WM&D remains a challenge for existing light-water reactors (LWR), which receive less funding for WM&D R&D yet have a more immediate need for solutions. Efforts to identify a long-term LWR waste disposal strategy have reached a standstill, with waste being stored at a variety of sites in various containers (Government Accountability Office, 2012). As LWR licenses are extended, LWRs will continue to produce spent nuclear fuel and eventually produce waste ∗
associated with decommissioning as they reach their end-of-life, exacerbating the problem. Broadly, the Department of Energy (DOE), and specifically the Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), is tasked with driving the development and organizing the implementation of nuclear energy within the U.S. As such, the DOE-NE is responsible for finding a sustainable solution to nuclear WM&D within the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC) partnership. The question of how to deal with the waste produced from the reactors still operating in the U.S. and those that are reaching the end of their lives is a vital question that must be answered before the nation's populace can fully embrace nuclear energy as a sustainable source of power. This article will focus on the current state of affairs in the U.S. by investigating the projects funded by DOE-NE and it will explore a few key policy moments that have driven these appropriations. In this paper we do not aim to describe the breadth and technical depth of possible WM&D solutions. Instead, we seek to shed light on the lack of longlasting programmatic goals and appropriate funding levels necessary in the U.S. to achieve a sustainable solution to the current and projected LWR waste.
Corresponding author. Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K.H. Yano), [email protected] (K.S. Mao).
∗∗
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2018.07.003 Received 3 May 2018; Received in revised form 13 June 2018; Accepted 9 July 2018 0149-1970/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Progress in Nuclear Energy 108 (2018) 474–479
K.H. Yano et al.
2. Background
repository at a site other than Yucca Mountain (after 2009), fuel reprocessing, global shared repositories, and long-term storage in dry casks at various locations across the country. This paper will not explore each of these potential solutions, nor their respective benefits and detractions; the reader is referred to other works for such a discussion (Ewing, 2015; Macfarlane and Ewing, 2017; Sanders and Sanders, 2016). The combination of the Three Mile Island meltdown (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) both increased costs of building new nuclear power plants (through changing regulation) and drove decreases in government funding for nuclear R&D such that by the end of the Clinton administration, funding for the Office of Nuclear Energy had reached an all-time low near $26 billion (Lovering et al., 2016; Moniz, 2011). But soon after the turn of the 21st century, under the George W. Bush administration, nuclear power experienced a resurgence, with DOE-NE funding increasing to $34 billion. These DOE-NE budget increases were enacted under both the Nuclear Power 2010 program and the Energy Policy (EP) Act of 2005. The goals of these combined projects were to incentivize the investment into alternative energy forms by providing both tax benefits and loan guarantees. These programs also improved licensing efficiency and speed for new nuclear reactor construction (Energy Policy Act of 2005, 2005; NEI, 2005; US Department of Energy, 2011). When Obama took office in 2009, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) was passed, acting as a large stimulus package, increasing funding across the board for the DOE. A portion of the ARRA went to DOE-NE to clean up nuclear weapons waste (US Department of Energy, 2012). However, in 2012 the Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) reported that nuclear waste remained a pressing issue in the U.S. that needed to be addressed with a long-term focus (Ayers et al., 2012). Despite this report, funding for nuclear WM&D dropped drastically after 2012. In 2014, the Nuclear Waste Fund fee collection ended. As of September 2016 the Fund had a fair value of $46 billion, with the majority of net costs (nearly $1.8 billion) for waste acceptance obligations and only a fraction of net costs (∼$8.8 million) to first repository and other program costs. Though the first repository and other program costs have gone towards research of siting repository locations, the Nuclear Waste Fund is not specifically dedicated to R&D of nuclear WM&D. As such, these funds will not be evaluated in this study (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Inspector General, 2016). The effects of these policies on investment in nuclear WM&D will be discussed in the next section.
2.1. DOE-NE funding mechanisms Funding for the DOE comes from the annual federal budget. The DOE requests an amount of funding, to be distributed amongst their various programs. This budget request goes through the Office of Management and Budget, then gets placed into the overall federal budget request from the Executive Branch. Congressional committees then work out appropriations and pass a final federal budget. Within the DOE, funds are divided between offices and programs within the Department, based on final budget appropriations. One such DOE office is the DOE-NE, which then further distributes its budget amongst multiple programs to meet their research objectives. DOE-NE programs primarily include funding of contracts and agreements to support R&D at U.S. universities, federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs, i.e. “national laboratories”), and private industry. The main DOE-NE R&D program at universities is the Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP). The NEUP awards funding on a competitive basis and consists of Program- or Missionsupporting R&D projects at universities, Integrated Research Projects (i.e. large, collaborative projects with partnerships between multiple institutions), and funding individual students through fellowships and scholarships. DOE-NE provides direct funding to FFRDCs, from which each FFRDC can implement a Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program, enabling the FFRDCs to provide R&D funding for selected projects based on internal metrics. In this paper, we will focus on the NEUP and LDRD program funding routes. The LDRD programs perform the creative and innovative work to secure leadership in relevant DOE and national security related science and technology (S&T) disciplines such as nuclear security, clean energy, and environmental challenges. NEUP supports U.S. leadership in outstanding, cutting-edge, and innovative research at universities to develop the next generation of nuclear energy leaders. These two programs highlight the current top-level R&D funding by the DOE to ensure U.S. leadership in clean energy innovation. 2.2. Policy events Important newsworthy occurrences, such as legislation passed by Congress, annual appropriations committee releases, reports to Congress, Congressional Research Service reports, and relevant DOE official reports on nuclear waste are needed to understand the funding drivers. In this section we look at the past 36 years of policy events which provide insights and context into the contemporary political climates of the recent 15–20 year history of data we analyze. This information, in combination with stated DOE goals, gives a clear picture of the ever-changing policy on nuclear energy WM&D in the U.S. There have been 7 changes in presidential administration during this time frame, with major legislative and executive strategic visions following these general administrative changes. The first directive came in 1982 with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). Here, Congress tasked the federal government with ownership of the waste generated from nuclear power reactors. In turn, nuclear waste owners and producers, such as utility companies that provide nuclear generated electricity to customers, would pay a fee of 1 mill (0.1 cent) per kilowatt-hour of energy produced. These fees would accumulate in the Nuclear Waste Fund ensuring that the storage, repository, transportation, and other program costs associated with nuclear WM&D would be borne by those utilizing the nuclear energy (U.S. Department of Energy, 2013). The intention was to provide the government with the authority to identify a permanent and sustainable solution for the waste. This permanent and sustainable solution has taken on various forms as administrations and members of Congress have changed. These potential solutions have included a permanent geological repository at Yucca Mountain (after 1987), a permanent
3. Methods The data collected is from the past 15–30 years (timeframe varies depending on data source and availability). From these data, we look at the overall NE budget and the NE budget devoted to nuclear waste, the latter of which fall into one of two categories: 1) construction, operation, and maintenance of sites storing nuclear waste and nuclear waste disposal and 2) nuclear waste R&D investment through the LDRD and NEUP programs. By splitting funded projects into these two categories, we can better understand the context of nuclear waste R&D investments within the overall DOE-NE budget and the overall nuclear waste investment. For the first category of data, NE WM&D funding, we look at the past 15 years of appropriations to NE for nuclear WM&D which covers both the nuclear energy and nuclear weapons sectors waste. It is critical here to note that weapons-related waste is generated by the Department of Defense (DOD), but the task of WM&D is assigned to DOE. The funding being analyzed includes official DOE budget appropriation reports, annual appropriation of nuclear energy funding by the U.S. Congress, and annual budget requests from the U.S. President. In the second category of data, as discussed in §2.1, we use two main sources of nuclear waste R&D funding: the LDRD program at DOE FFRDCs and the DOE-NE NEUP. All the projects including nuclear waste 475
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nuclear waste funding. We also evaluate DOE-NE R&D and nuclear waste-related R&D as fractions of total budgets. DOE-NE R&D funding is first considered in the context of total DOE R&D funding across all DOE Offices and programs (Fig. 2a). Next, DOE-NE R&D funding is considered in the context of the total DOE-NE budget, which including all DOE-NE activities in addition to R&D (Fig. 2b). DOE-NE R&D funding in dollars increased by a factor of four between 2007 and 2008 and has maintained this level since. Importantly though, DOE-NE R&D funding occupies a greater percentage of the total DOE R&D budget (currently ∼6%) than of the total DOE-NE budget (currently ∼3%). Several key conclusions can be drawn from Fig. 2a and b. First, nuclear receives only ∼6% of all energy-related R&D dollars in the US, despite occupying nearly 20% of the commercial power production market share (Future, 2009). Second, R&D receives relatively minimal support from the overall DOE-NE budget, on the order of 2–3% ($600–800 million) over the past 10 years. Finally, the percentages of the total DOE R&D budget and the total DOE-NE budget committed to DOE-NE R&D (dashed lines, Fig. 2a–b) nearly identically follow trends in their respective budgets (solid lines, Fig. 2a–b). This indicates the volatility in DOE-NE R&D funding; i.e. it is one of the first areas cut when the overall budgets must be reduced. We further analyze the DOE-NE R&D funding by looking at those projects in the LDRD and NEUP programs that are specifically geared toward nuclear WM&D (Fig. 2c and d, respectively). These two initiatives are the main funding arms for competitive DOE-NE R&D at national laboratories and universities, respectively. We use LDRD and NEUP project titles to directly ascribe funding dollars to waste-related versus non-waste-related projects. The LDRD data covers 10 years spanning 2004–2014, as official LDRD reports do not yet include years beyond 2014. Since NEUP was created in 2009, data ranges the 2009–2017 time period. The average annual NEUP budget is typically $2–3 million, aside from a $10 million peak in 2012; LDRD annual budgets are more variable, although they also reached a peak of $3.5 million in 2012. While the overall DOE-NE R&D budget has been maintained at ∼$600–800 million for the past 10 years, the portion of these funds appropriated for WM&D projects can be described as being miniscule. For example, nuclear waste R&D constitutes only ∼2–16% of the NEUP budget, and < 1% of the total LDRD budget. Even with budget increases in 2012, the LDRD program spent only $3 million on nuclear waste R&D projects that year. The NEUP, specifically focused on nuclear energy projects, reached $10 million dollars in funding that year, but cumulatively, the amount spent on both of the LDRD and NEUP programs for nuclear waste R&D over the past 15 years is only $37
remediation, waste forms, and other waste-related research are separated from the other energy focused types of research. Collected sources include DOE official budget appropriation reports with the annually funded R&D projects that occur at national laboratories and universities. The data we have obtained include annual DOE budget justification documents which contain funding details of each individual program. We have established a database listing the funding levels and names of each project. The data for all the funding information is collected from 1996 to 2018 for the nuclear waste, extracted from the overall nuclear energy budget. The current dollar value obtained for 2017 levels, is based on the consumer price indexes (CPI) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where past years' data is converted to October 2017 values (Statistics, 2017). 4. Results & discussion 4.1. Federal investment in nuclear energy & nuclear waste R&D Federal financial investment in nuclear waste issues will be understood according to two different measures. The first measure examines the overall DOE-NE budget and the portion of this budget that supports WM&D efforts. The second measure of investment considers only the R &D portion of the DOE-NE budget, and specifically calculates the amount of R&D dollars that support projects on nuclear WM&D. Each of these measures shall be discussed separately in this section. Over the past 30 years, the total funding for the Office of Nuclear Energy has remained consistent at ∼$29 billion ± $3 billion in 2017 dollars (Fig. 1a). There are two funding peaks that lay outside the standard deviation; the peak in 1982 corresponds to the NWPA, and the peak in 2009 reflects the results of the ARRA stimulus package that increased funding across many government agencies (Abdulla et al., 2017). While total DOE-NE funding has remained stable, the fraction supporting nuclear WM&D has dropped to $0 over the past 15 years (Fig. 1b). This fraction of the DOE-NE budget is that dedicated to the construction, operation, and maintenance costs associated with storing and transporting nuclear waste. After a four-fold increase in funding from 2002 to 2005, due in part to the Nuclear Power 2010 program and EP Act of 2005, funding for nuclear WM&D has undergone a steady decline from $800 million in 2005. The only interruption in this declining trend occurred in 2009, when stimulus funds held nuclear waste appropriations stable for 2 years. Then despite the 2012 BRC calling for a reevaluation of appropriations, funding for DOE-NE WM&D programs fell to $0 in the same year. Nuclear waste funding has remained at $0 for four years, although the 2017 budget saw a $25 million increase in
Fig. 1. (a) Total DOE-NE funding over the past four decades, with average and standard deviation about the average; (b) nuclear waste funding within DOE over the past 15 years. 476
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Fig. 2. Dollar amount of funding and percentage of total for: (a) nuclear energy R&D within DOE R&D, (b) nuclear energy R&D within DOE-NE total, (c) nuclear waste R&D within LDRD and (d) nuclear waste R&D within NEU.
million dollars. The percentages of the total LDRD and NEUP budgets ascribed to nuclear waste-related projects (dashed lines, Fig. 2c–d) follow the trends in their respective budgets (solid lines, Fig. 2c–d). Thus, nuclear waste is a volatile funding category within DOE-NE R&D, which is itself a volatile category amongst the overall DOE R&D and DOE-NE budgets. This leads to an environment in which nuclear waste issues are not a funding priority; the nuclear waste research community cannot count on consistent funding effort (i.e. percent of budget). Without adequate funding it is not surprising that the technology available to advance our ability to deal with this growing issue has not advanced. Hence, it is unsurprising that nuclear waste policy has likewise been inconsistent. 4.2. Relationship between funding and waste volumes To fully understand the critical need for stable, significant R&D funding for nuclear WM&D, however, one must consider the amount of nuclear waste accumulating across the country. Current and extrapolated future levels of nuclear waste from existing LWRs are shown in Fig. 3 (Government Accountability Office, 2012). In this figure, waste is separated into three categories: dry storage, wet storage, and waste from decommissioning reactors over the next 50 years (which includes both dry and wet decommissioning waste). The total amount of waste tracks with the decommissioned value over time, showing that all the LWR waste will soon be coming from decommissioned reactors. Currently there are 80,000 metric tons of waste waiting for permanent
Fig. 3. Predicted metric tons of spent nuclear fuel to be accumulated over the next 50 years.
disposal. This value will increase to 140,000 metric tons by 2050: almost twice as much as currently needs to be disposed. Over the past 15 years, the U.S. has had an inverse relationship 477
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Fig. 5. Quadrant model of scientific research applied for nuclear waste technology, indicating this problem spans basic through applied research, and involves both industry and government.
Without a clear plan forward, the nuclear industry cannot viably produce energy for the public. While the government could be the superseding force to grant the long-term funding, authorization, and direction needed to achieve a grand challenge, the past 20 years have shown that the federal government cannot solve the nuclear waste problem on its own. As recommended in the BRC in 2012 and by Ewing in (Ewing, 2015), an independent, non-governmental agency with its own permanent source of funding, would have the lasting commitment, vision, and authority necessary to devise the most practical solution for U.S. nuclear WM&D. In summary of Fig. 1, despite the NE budget staying fairly even around $29 billion annually, the nuclear waste funding declined both in dollar value and percentage of total nuclear energy funding over the past 15 years. This overall budget reflects not only the funds needed to operate sites and maintain storage facilities, it also reflects on the R&D funding provided by the DOE to provide a permanent and sustainable solution to the WM&D question. We suggest an increase to the overall DOE-NE budget such that the nuclear waste R&D funding can be grown to at least 2.5% of the total DOE-NE budget. We believe this is necessary to ensure the development of scientifically sound nuclear waste storage approaches. Nuclear waste related R&D should hold steady at 1% of the total LDRD program budget and be raised to a consistent 12% of the NEUP budget. This will enable research into basic questions of the long-term safety, security, and sustainability of various nuclear waste storage and disposal methods. This work may later be used as a basis for setting policies and regulations. For nuclear energy to be a competitive member of the future decarbonized energy portfolio in the U.S., a sustainable solution must be identified and instituted for the accumulating LWR waste, as well as for waste that will eventually be produced from advanced reactors.
Fig. 4. Accumulated nuclear waste is inversely related to R&D funding for nuclear waste problems, over the last 15 years.
between funding for nuclear waste research and the accumulation of nuclear waste (Fig. 4). While funding zeroed out between 2012 and 2016, nuclear waste continued to accumulate at a rate of 2500 metric tons/year. These trends illustrate that management and disposal of nuclear waste in the U.S. is a problem that will continue to grow evermore dire, until consistent federal policies are established to support a concerted R&D effort aimed to identify a permanent solution for nuclear waste. This perilous nuclear waste situation is expressly contrary to the stated goals of the DOE-NE and the desires of the U.S. populace (National Research Council, 2001; Sanders and Sanders, 2016). 4.3. Consequences and future directions To benchmark the scale of the nuclear waste problem, we investigate the consequences of not having a permanent WM&D solution. Consequences include environmental safety concerns of leaving waste in dry storage at reactor sites; costs and radiological worker risks associated with regular inspection, maintenance, and repair of waste storage canisters at reactor sites; security of the waste; and fines paid to nuclear power utility companies by the U.S. government for not meeting the terms of the NWPA. This latter consequence alone incurs $750 million/year in fines (paid by the taxpayer), and will continue to incur such fines until waste is removed from reactor sites and dealt with in a permanent and sustainable manner (Government Accountability Office, 2012). If the federal government would instead invest the cost of NWPA fines into R&D to identify a permanent solution for nuclear waste, this $750 million would be only 2.5% of the 2017 DOE-NE budget of $30 billion, or roughly the equivalent of the annual DOE-NE R&D budget. A variation on Pasteur's quadrant is often used to map out the level of resources and technical risk involved with various R&D initiatives. Fig. 5 shows a modified quadrant model identifying and aiding visualization of the predicament that nuclear WM&D is a central technical challenge requiring integrated cooperative planning and resource commitment from both government and industry organizations in conducting incremental versus revolutionary R&D. Traditionally, fundamental research needed for revolutionary changes in our understanding of the world requires the stability and long-term funding opportunities provided by government investment. Industry tends to be more concerned with research focused on enhancing efficiency and profitability in day-to-day operations. However, the issue of nuclear WM&D transcends these traditional roles for government and industry.
5. Conclusions In this work, we have collected and analyzed funding data for the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy. The budget appropriations were first split into two categories: nuclear WM&D on an operational level, versus overall NE funding. The DOE-NE R&D budget was then sub-divided into LDRD and NEUP projects that focused on WM&D. We conclude that: 1) Nuclear waste R&D is dangerously underfunded, having dropped to levels of ∼$0 millions of dollars in 2012–2016. Funding is inversely related to the accumulating waste volumes at sites nationwide. 2) Funding for nuclear WM&D R&D a highly volatile funding category within DOE R&D, lacking long-term direction, mirroring an everchanging national nuclear WM&D policy. 3) Nuclear waste R&D funding is significantly lower than the annual financial consequences for lack of a solution for permanent nuclear waste disposal, as per the NWPA. We therefore propose an increase in funding levels for nuclear waste R&D as a stable fraction of the
478
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overall DOE-NE budget. 4) Finally, as recommended by Ewing and the BRC, we recommend the creation of an independent organization to take responsibility for nuclear waste disposal.
Contrib. Work. Gr. III to Fifth assess. Rep. Intergov. Panel Clim. Chang. pp. 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324. Lovering, J.R., Yip, A., Nordhaus, T., 2016. Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors. Energy Pol. 91, 371–382. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.01. 011. Macfarlane, A., Ewing, R., 2017. Déjà vu for U.S. nuclear waste. Science 356 (6345), 1313. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao1711. Moniz, E.J., 2011. Why we still need nuclear power: making clean energy safe and affordable. Foreign Aff. 90, 83–94. National Research Council, 2001. Disposition of High-level Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel: the Continuing Societal and Technical Challenges. https://doi.org/10.17226/10119. NEI, 2005. Congress Passes First Comprehensive Energy Bill in 13 Years. Sanders, M.C., Sanders, C.E., 2016. A world's dilemma “upon which the sun never sets” the nuclear waste management strategy (part I): western European Nation States and the United States of America. Prog. Nucl. Energy 90, 69–97. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.pnucene.2016.02.012. Statistics, B. of L., 2017. Consumer Price Index Calculator. https://www.bls.gov/data/ inflation_calculator.htm. Systems, A.E., 1980. Energy in Transition, 1985-2010. https://doi.org/10.17226/11771. U.S. Department of Energy, 2013. Nuclear Waste Fund Fee Adequacy Assessment Report. U.S. Department of Energy Office of Inspector General, 2016. Audit Report. US Department of Energy, 2012. Department of Energy : Successes of the Recovery Act the Pillars of the Recovery Act Energy Efficiency - Homes Weatherized TransportationElectric Drive Vehicles. US Department of Energy, 2011. Nuclear Power 2010 Program: Combined Construction and Operating License & Design Certification Demonstration Projects Lessons Learned Report.
References Abdulla, A., Ford, M.J., Morgan, M.G., Victor, D.G., 2017. A retrospective analysis of funding and focus in US advanced fission innovation. Environ. Res. Lett. 12, 84016. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7f10. Ayers, M.H., Bailey, V.A., Carnesale, A., Domenici, P.V., Eisenhower, S., Hagel, C., Lash, J., Macfarlane, A.M., Meserve, R.A., Moniz, E.J., Peterson, P.E., Rowe, J.W., Sharp, P., 2012. Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future: Report to the Secretary of Energy. Energy Policy Act of 2005, 2005. . Ewing, R.C., 2015. Long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel. Nat. Mater. 14, 252–257. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4226. Future, E., 2009. America's Energy Future. https://doi.org/10.17226/12710. Government Accountability Office, U.S., 2012. SPENT Nuclear Fuel Accumulating Quantities at Commercial Reactors Present Storage and Other Challenges. Spent Nucl. Fuel Accumulating Quant. Commer. React. Present Storage Other Challenges. Grimes, R.W., Nuttall, W.J., 2010. Generating the option of a two-stage nuclear renaissance. 329, 799–803. International Energy Agency (IEA), 2017. World Energy Outlook. https://doi.org/10. 1016/0301-4215(73) 90024–4. IPCC, W.I., 2014. Summary for Policymakers. Clim. Chang. 2014 Mitig. Clim. Chang.
479
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Progress in Nuclear Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pnucene
Investing in a permanent and sustainable nuclear waste disposal solution a,∗
Kayla H. Yano , Keyou S. Mao a b c
a,∗∗
b
T
c
, Janelle P. Wharry , D. Marshall Porterfield
School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering, 701 West Stadium Avenue, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2045, USA School of Nuclear Engineering, Purdue University, 400 Central Drive, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2017, USA Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering, Purdue University, 225 South University Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2093, USA
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Nuclear power Nuclear waste Office of Nuclear Energy Nuclear Waste Policy Act Federal funding Radioactive materials
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act was enacted in 1982, tasking the federal government with providing a permanent, sustainable disposal solution for highly radioactive waste from the existing fleet of light-water reactors (LWR). However, after 30 years and shifts in direction, the U.S. remains uncommitted to a plan for tackling the accumulating waste. Investment in research and development at national laboratories and universities largely focuses on advanced and small modular reactor designs and enabling technologies. While these designs would improve nuclear fuel efficiency and reduce waste, the existing problem of LWR waste looms. This problem will become further exacerbated as LWRs near the end of their licensed lives and begin to shut down, requiring disposal of spent fuel and structural materials. Here we show a critical need for strategic direction, planning, and investment into developing a sustainable, permanent solution for disposal of radioactive waste produced by the existing nuclear reactor fleet.
1. Introduction In, 2017 the World Energy Outlook proposed a scenario for reducing CO2 emissions to sustainable levels by 2040 (International Energy Agency (IEA, 2017)). Discussed in this proposed scenario are a wide range of low-carbon energy sources, and as with other reports (Grimes and Nuttall, 2010; IPCC, 2014; Systems, 1980), it includes nuclear energy as a source providing 15-20% of the world's energy over the next 20 years. In order to reach this share of the future energy portfolio, concerns amongst the public and the nuclear community with regards to nuclear energy waste management and disposal (WM&D) (Sanders and Sanders, 2016; Systems, 1980) must be resolved. These concerns have driven a recent research and development (R&D) focus on the design, safety, materials integrity, and regulatory issues for advanced reactor designs that utilize nuclear fuel more efficiently, as well as for small modular reactors that reduce on-site construction and enhance fuel security. Nevertheless, WM&D remains a challenge for existing light-water reactors (LWR), which receive less funding for WM&D R&D yet have a more immediate need for solutions. Efforts to identify a long-term LWR waste disposal strategy have reached a standstill, with waste being stored at a variety of sites in various containers (Government Accountability Office, 2012). As LWR licenses are extended, LWRs will continue to produce spent nuclear fuel and eventually produce waste ∗
associated with decommissioning as they reach their end-of-life, exacerbating the problem. Broadly, the Department of Energy (DOE), and specifically the Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), is tasked with driving the development and organizing the implementation of nuclear energy within the U.S. As such, the DOE-NE is responsible for finding a sustainable solution to nuclear WM&D within the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC) partnership. The question of how to deal with the waste produced from the reactors still operating in the U.S. and those that are reaching the end of their lives is a vital question that must be answered before the nation's populace can fully embrace nuclear energy as a sustainable source of power. This article will focus on the current state of affairs in the U.S. by investigating the projects funded by DOE-NE and it will explore a few key policy moments that have driven these appropriations. In this paper we do not aim to describe the breadth and technical depth of possible WM&D solutions. Instead, we seek to shed light on the lack of longlasting programmatic goals and appropriate funding levels necessary in the U.S. to achieve a sustainable solution to the current and projected LWR waste.
Corresponding author. Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K.H. Yano), [email protected] (K.S. Mao).
∗∗
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2018.07.003 Received 3 May 2018; Received in revised form 13 June 2018; Accepted 9 July 2018 0149-1970/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Progress in Nuclear Energy 108 (2018) 474–479
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2. Background
repository at a site other than Yucca Mountain (after 2009), fuel reprocessing, global shared repositories, and long-term storage in dry casks at various locations across the country. This paper will not explore each of these potential solutions, nor their respective benefits and detractions; the reader is referred to other works for such a discussion (Ewing, 2015; Macfarlane and Ewing, 2017; Sanders and Sanders, 2016). The combination of the Three Mile Island meltdown (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) both increased costs of building new nuclear power plants (through changing regulation) and drove decreases in government funding for nuclear R&D such that by the end of the Clinton administration, funding for the Office of Nuclear Energy had reached an all-time low near $26 billion (Lovering et al., 2016; Moniz, 2011). But soon after the turn of the 21st century, under the George W. Bush administration, nuclear power experienced a resurgence, with DOE-NE funding increasing to $34 billion. These DOE-NE budget increases were enacted under both the Nuclear Power 2010 program and the Energy Policy (EP) Act of 2005. The goals of these combined projects were to incentivize the investment into alternative energy forms by providing both tax benefits and loan guarantees. These programs also improved licensing efficiency and speed for new nuclear reactor construction (Energy Policy Act of 2005, 2005; NEI, 2005; US Department of Energy, 2011). When Obama took office in 2009, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) was passed, acting as a large stimulus package, increasing funding across the board for the DOE. A portion of the ARRA went to DOE-NE to clean up nuclear weapons waste (US Department of Energy, 2012). However, in 2012 the Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) reported that nuclear waste remained a pressing issue in the U.S. that needed to be addressed with a long-term focus (Ayers et al., 2012). Despite this report, funding for nuclear WM&D dropped drastically after 2012. In 2014, the Nuclear Waste Fund fee collection ended. As of September 2016 the Fund had a fair value of $46 billion, with the majority of net costs (nearly $1.8 billion) for waste acceptance obligations and only a fraction of net costs (∼$8.8 million) to first repository and other program costs. Though the first repository and other program costs have gone towards research of siting repository locations, the Nuclear Waste Fund is not specifically dedicated to R&D of nuclear WM&D. As such, these funds will not be evaluated in this study (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Inspector General, 2016). The effects of these policies on investment in nuclear WM&D will be discussed in the next section.
2.1. DOE-NE funding mechanisms Funding for the DOE comes from the annual federal budget. The DOE requests an amount of funding, to be distributed amongst their various programs. This budget request goes through the Office of Management and Budget, then gets placed into the overall federal budget request from the Executive Branch. Congressional committees then work out appropriations and pass a final federal budget. Within the DOE, funds are divided between offices and programs within the Department, based on final budget appropriations. One such DOE office is the DOE-NE, which then further distributes its budget amongst multiple programs to meet their research objectives. DOE-NE programs primarily include funding of contracts and agreements to support R&D at U.S. universities, federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs, i.e. “national laboratories”), and private industry. The main DOE-NE R&D program at universities is the Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP). The NEUP awards funding on a competitive basis and consists of Program- or Missionsupporting R&D projects at universities, Integrated Research Projects (i.e. large, collaborative projects with partnerships between multiple institutions), and funding individual students through fellowships and scholarships. DOE-NE provides direct funding to FFRDCs, from which each FFRDC can implement a Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program, enabling the FFRDCs to provide R&D funding for selected projects based on internal metrics. In this paper, we will focus on the NEUP and LDRD program funding routes. The LDRD programs perform the creative and innovative work to secure leadership in relevant DOE and national security related science and technology (S&T) disciplines such as nuclear security, clean energy, and environmental challenges. NEUP supports U.S. leadership in outstanding, cutting-edge, and innovative research at universities to develop the next generation of nuclear energy leaders. These two programs highlight the current top-level R&D funding by the DOE to ensure U.S. leadership in clean energy innovation. 2.2. Policy events Important newsworthy occurrences, such as legislation passed by Congress, annual appropriations committee releases, reports to Congress, Congressional Research Service reports, and relevant DOE official reports on nuclear waste are needed to understand the funding drivers. In this section we look at the past 36 years of policy events which provide insights and context into the contemporary political climates of the recent 15–20 year history of data we analyze. This information, in combination with stated DOE goals, gives a clear picture of the ever-changing policy on nuclear energy WM&D in the U.S. There have been 7 changes in presidential administration during this time frame, with major legislative and executive strategic visions following these general administrative changes. The first directive came in 1982 with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). Here, Congress tasked the federal government with ownership of the waste generated from nuclear power reactors. In turn, nuclear waste owners and producers, such as utility companies that provide nuclear generated electricity to customers, would pay a fee of 1 mill (0.1 cent) per kilowatt-hour of energy produced. These fees would accumulate in the Nuclear Waste Fund ensuring that the storage, repository, transportation, and other program costs associated with nuclear WM&D would be borne by those utilizing the nuclear energy (U.S. Department of Energy, 2013). The intention was to provide the government with the authority to identify a permanent and sustainable solution for the waste. This permanent and sustainable solution has taken on various forms as administrations and members of Congress have changed. These potential solutions have included a permanent geological repository at Yucca Mountain (after 1987), a permanent
3. Methods The data collected is from the past 15–30 years (timeframe varies depending on data source and availability). From these data, we look at the overall NE budget and the NE budget devoted to nuclear waste, the latter of which fall into one of two categories: 1) construction, operation, and maintenance of sites storing nuclear waste and nuclear waste disposal and 2) nuclear waste R&D investment through the LDRD and NEUP programs. By splitting funded projects into these two categories, we can better understand the context of nuclear waste R&D investments within the overall DOE-NE budget and the overall nuclear waste investment. For the first category of data, NE WM&D funding, we look at the past 15 years of appropriations to NE for nuclear WM&D which covers both the nuclear energy and nuclear weapons sectors waste. It is critical here to note that weapons-related waste is generated by the Department of Defense (DOD), but the task of WM&D is assigned to DOE. The funding being analyzed includes official DOE budget appropriation reports, annual appropriation of nuclear energy funding by the U.S. Congress, and annual budget requests from the U.S. President. In the second category of data, as discussed in §2.1, we use two main sources of nuclear waste R&D funding: the LDRD program at DOE FFRDCs and the DOE-NE NEUP. All the projects including nuclear waste 475
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nuclear waste funding. We also evaluate DOE-NE R&D and nuclear waste-related R&D as fractions of total budgets. DOE-NE R&D funding is first considered in the context of total DOE R&D funding across all DOE Offices and programs (Fig. 2a). Next, DOE-NE R&D funding is considered in the context of the total DOE-NE budget, which including all DOE-NE activities in addition to R&D (Fig. 2b). DOE-NE R&D funding in dollars increased by a factor of four between 2007 and 2008 and has maintained this level since. Importantly though, DOE-NE R&D funding occupies a greater percentage of the total DOE R&D budget (currently ∼6%) than of the total DOE-NE budget (currently ∼3%). Several key conclusions can be drawn from Fig. 2a and b. First, nuclear receives only ∼6% of all energy-related R&D dollars in the US, despite occupying nearly 20% of the commercial power production market share (Future, 2009). Second, R&D receives relatively minimal support from the overall DOE-NE budget, on the order of 2–3% ($600–800 million) over the past 10 years. Finally, the percentages of the total DOE R&D budget and the total DOE-NE budget committed to DOE-NE R&D (dashed lines, Fig. 2a–b) nearly identically follow trends in their respective budgets (solid lines, Fig. 2a–b). This indicates the volatility in DOE-NE R&D funding; i.e. it is one of the first areas cut when the overall budgets must be reduced. We further analyze the DOE-NE R&D funding by looking at those projects in the LDRD and NEUP programs that are specifically geared toward nuclear WM&D (Fig. 2c and d, respectively). These two initiatives are the main funding arms for competitive DOE-NE R&D at national laboratories and universities, respectively. We use LDRD and NEUP project titles to directly ascribe funding dollars to waste-related versus non-waste-related projects. The LDRD data covers 10 years spanning 2004–2014, as official LDRD reports do not yet include years beyond 2014. Since NEUP was created in 2009, data ranges the 2009–2017 time period. The average annual NEUP budget is typically $2–3 million, aside from a $10 million peak in 2012; LDRD annual budgets are more variable, although they also reached a peak of $3.5 million in 2012. While the overall DOE-NE R&D budget has been maintained at ∼$600–800 million for the past 10 years, the portion of these funds appropriated for WM&D projects can be described as being miniscule. For example, nuclear waste R&D constitutes only ∼2–16% of the NEUP budget, and < 1% of the total LDRD budget. Even with budget increases in 2012, the LDRD program spent only $3 million on nuclear waste R&D projects that year. The NEUP, specifically focused on nuclear energy projects, reached $10 million dollars in funding that year, but cumulatively, the amount spent on both of the LDRD and NEUP programs for nuclear waste R&D over the past 15 years is only $37
remediation, waste forms, and other waste-related research are separated from the other energy focused types of research. Collected sources include DOE official budget appropriation reports with the annually funded R&D projects that occur at national laboratories and universities. The data we have obtained include annual DOE budget justification documents which contain funding details of each individual program. We have established a database listing the funding levels and names of each project. The data for all the funding information is collected from 1996 to 2018 for the nuclear waste, extracted from the overall nuclear energy budget. The current dollar value obtained for 2017 levels, is based on the consumer price indexes (CPI) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where past years' data is converted to October 2017 values (Statistics, 2017). 4. Results & discussion 4.1. Federal investment in nuclear energy & nuclear waste R&D Federal financial investment in nuclear waste issues will be understood according to two different measures. The first measure examines the overall DOE-NE budget and the portion of this budget that supports WM&D efforts. The second measure of investment considers only the R &D portion of the DOE-NE budget, and specifically calculates the amount of R&D dollars that support projects on nuclear WM&D. Each of these measures shall be discussed separately in this section. Over the past 30 years, the total funding for the Office of Nuclear Energy has remained consistent at ∼$29 billion ± $3 billion in 2017 dollars (Fig. 1a). There are two funding peaks that lay outside the standard deviation; the peak in 1982 corresponds to the NWPA, and the peak in 2009 reflects the results of the ARRA stimulus package that increased funding across many government agencies (Abdulla et al., 2017). While total DOE-NE funding has remained stable, the fraction supporting nuclear WM&D has dropped to $0 over the past 15 years (Fig. 1b). This fraction of the DOE-NE budget is that dedicated to the construction, operation, and maintenance costs associated with storing and transporting nuclear waste. After a four-fold increase in funding from 2002 to 2005, due in part to the Nuclear Power 2010 program and EP Act of 2005, funding for nuclear WM&D has undergone a steady decline from $800 million in 2005. The only interruption in this declining trend occurred in 2009, when stimulus funds held nuclear waste appropriations stable for 2 years. Then despite the 2012 BRC calling for a reevaluation of appropriations, funding for DOE-NE WM&D programs fell to $0 in the same year. Nuclear waste funding has remained at $0 for four years, although the 2017 budget saw a $25 million increase in
Fig. 1. (a) Total DOE-NE funding over the past four decades, with average and standard deviation about the average; (b) nuclear waste funding within DOE over the past 15 years. 476
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Fig. 2. Dollar amount of funding and percentage of total for: (a) nuclear energy R&D within DOE R&D, (b) nuclear energy R&D within DOE-NE total, (c) nuclear waste R&D within LDRD and (d) nuclear waste R&D within NEU.
million dollars. The percentages of the total LDRD and NEUP budgets ascribed to nuclear waste-related projects (dashed lines, Fig. 2c–d) follow the trends in their respective budgets (solid lines, Fig. 2c–d). Thus, nuclear waste is a volatile funding category within DOE-NE R&D, which is itself a volatile category amongst the overall DOE R&D and DOE-NE budgets. This leads to an environment in which nuclear waste issues are not a funding priority; the nuclear waste research community cannot count on consistent funding effort (i.e. percent of budget). Without adequate funding it is not surprising that the technology available to advance our ability to deal with this growing issue has not advanced. Hence, it is unsurprising that nuclear waste policy has likewise been inconsistent. 4.2. Relationship between funding and waste volumes To fully understand the critical need for stable, significant R&D funding for nuclear WM&D, however, one must consider the amount of nuclear waste accumulating across the country. Current and extrapolated future levels of nuclear waste from existing LWRs are shown in Fig. 3 (Government Accountability Office, 2012). In this figure, waste is separated into three categories: dry storage, wet storage, and waste from decommissioning reactors over the next 50 years (which includes both dry and wet decommissioning waste). The total amount of waste tracks with the decommissioned value over time, showing that all the LWR waste will soon be coming from decommissioned reactors. Currently there are 80,000 metric tons of waste waiting for permanent
Fig. 3. Predicted metric tons of spent nuclear fuel to be accumulated over the next 50 years.
disposal. This value will increase to 140,000 metric tons by 2050: almost twice as much as currently needs to be disposed. Over the past 15 years, the U.S. has had an inverse relationship 477
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Fig. 5. Quadrant model of scientific research applied for nuclear waste technology, indicating this problem spans basic through applied research, and involves both industry and government.
Without a clear plan forward, the nuclear industry cannot viably produce energy for the public. While the government could be the superseding force to grant the long-term funding, authorization, and direction needed to achieve a grand challenge, the past 20 years have shown that the federal government cannot solve the nuclear waste problem on its own. As recommended in the BRC in 2012 and by Ewing in (Ewing, 2015), an independent, non-governmental agency with its own permanent source of funding, would have the lasting commitment, vision, and authority necessary to devise the most practical solution for U.S. nuclear WM&D. In summary of Fig. 1, despite the NE budget staying fairly even around $29 billion annually, the nuclear waste funding declined both in dollar value and percentage of total nuclear energy funding over the past 15 years. This overall budget reflects not only the funds needed to operate sites and maintain storage facilities, it also reflects on the R&D funding provided by the DOE to provide a permanent and sustainable solution to the WM&D question. We suggest an increase to the overall DOE-NE budget such that the nuclear waste R&D funding can be grown to at least 2.5% of the total DOE-NE budget. We believe this is necessary to ensure the development of scientifically sound nuclear waste storage approaches. Nuclear waste related R&D should hold steady at 1% of the total LDRD program budget and be raised to a consistent 12% of the NEUP budget. This will enable research into basic questions of the long-term safety, security, and sustainability of various nuclear waste storage and disposal methods. This work may later be used as a basis for setting policies and regulations. For nuclear energy to be a competitive member of the future decarbonized energy portfolio in the U.S., a sustainable solution must be identified and instituted for the accumulating LWR waste, as well as for waste that will eventually be produced from advanced reactors.
Fig. 4. Accumulated nuclear waste is inversely related to R&D funding for nuclear waste problems, over the last 15 years.
between funding for nuclear waste research and the accumulation of nuclear waste (Fig. 4). While funding zeroed out between 2012 and 2016, nuclear waste continued to accumulate at a rate of 2500 metric tons/year. These trends illustrate that management and disposal of nuclear waste in the U.S. is a problem that will continue to grow evermore dire, until consistent federal policies are established to support a concerted R&D effort aimed to identify a permanent solution for nuclear waste. This perilous nuclear waste situation is expressly contrary to the stated goals of the DOE-NE and the desires of the U.S. populace (National Research Council, 2001; Sanders and Sanders, 2016). 4.3. Consequences and future directions To benchmark the scale of the nuclear waste problem, we investigate the consequences of not having a permanent WM&D solution. Consequences include environmental safety concerns of leaving waste in dry storage at reactor sites; costs and radiological worker risks associated with regular inspection, maintenance, and repair of waste storage canisters at reactor sites; security of the waste; and fines paid to nuclear power utility companies by the U.S. government for not meeting the terms of the NWPA. This latter consequence alone incurs $750 million/year in fines (paid by the taxpayer), and will continue to incur such fines until waste is removed from reactor sites and dealt with in a permanent and sustainable manner (Government Accountability Office, 2012). If the federal government would instead invest the cost of NWPA fines into R&D to identify a permanent solution for nuclear waste, this $750 million would be only 2.5% of the 2017 DOE-NE budget of $30 billion, or roughly the equivalent of the annual DOE-NE R&D budget. A variation on Pasteur's quadrant is often used to map out the level of resources and technical risk involved with various R&D initiatives. Fig. 5 shows a modified quadrant model identifying and aiding visualization of the predicament that nuclear WM&D is a central technical challenge requiring integrated cooperative planning and resource commitment from both government and industry organizations in conducting incremental versus revolutionary R&D. Traditionally, fundamental research needed for revolutionary changes in our understanding of the world requires the stability and long-term funding opportunities provided by government investment. Industry tends to be more concerned with research focused on enhancing efficiency and profitability in day-to-day operations. However, the issue of nuclear WM&D transcends these traditional roles for government and industry.
5. Conclusions In this work, we have collected and analyzed funding data for the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy. The budget appropriations were first split into two categories: nuclear WM&D on an operational level, versus overall NE funding. The DOE-NE R&D budget was then sub-divided into LDRD and NEUP projects that focused on WM&D. We conclude that: 1) Nuclear waste R&D is dangerously underfunded, having dropped to levels of ∼$0 millions of dollars in 2012–2016. Funding is inversely related to the accumulating waste volumes at sites nationwide. 2) Funding for nuclear WM&D R&D a highly volatile funding category within DOE R&D, lacking long-term direction, mirroring an everchanging national nuclear WM&D policy. 3) Nuclear waste R&D funding is significantly lower than the annual financial consequences for lack of a solution for permanent nuclear waste disposal, as per the NWPA. We therefore propose an increase in funding levels for nuclear waste R&D as a stable fraction of the
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overall DOE-NE budget. 4) Finally, as recommended by Ewing and the BRC, we recommend the creation of an independent organization to take responsibility for nuclear waste disposal.
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