Lawmaker revives radioactive debate over nuclear waste in Wyoming

FROM WYOFILE:

Rep. Donald Burkhart Jr. says he’s drafting a proposal for radioactive waste storage to generate major revenue for the state.

The time has come to again consider opening Wyoming’s doors to a spent nuclear fuel waste repository, some lawmakers proclaim.

Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee Co-chairman Rep. Donald Burkhart Jr. (R-Rawlins), a longtime proponent of the idea,  said he will bring a draft bill to the committee in October.

The outlook for Wyoming’s fossil fuel-dependent budget is trending downward while the state could reap more than $4 billion a year from nuclear waste storage, “Just to let us keep it here in Wyoming,” he told committee members during the final minutes of a two-day hearing in Casper on Wednesday.

Burkhart said he was asked by the Legislature’s Regulatory Reduction Task Force — which is co-chaired by Sen. Mike Gierau (D-Jackson) and Rep. Bob Nicholas (R-Cheyenne) — to take up the effort. Minerals committee member Sen. Stacy Jones (R-Rock Springs), who also serves on the task force, said, “It was just brought to us as a possible money maker for Wyoming.”

Burkhart shared a rough draft among committee members for potential legislation paving the way to nuclear waste storage, but he has declined to share the document publicly, according to the Legislative Service Office. He did not respond to WyoFile inquiries regarding the working draft document and more details about the proposal.

Jill Morrison, who has lobbied against similar proposals since the 1990s as an advocate for the Sheridan-based Powder River Basin Resource Council and has since retired, said it’s a bad idea that keeps coming back every few years.

“They want to try to sneak it in and ram it through,” Morrison told WyoFile. “It threatens public safety and it’s really going to wreck Wyoming’s national reputation and image as a destination for tourism and recreation — a beautiful place to visit or live.

“And guess what,” Morrison added. “People don’t want it.”

‘Rough draft’ proposal

Burkhart gave an overview for the concept to committee members on Wednesday.

The facility would accommodate spent nuclear fuel in “dry” form as opposed to “wet,” he said. When nuclear fuel rods are initially removed from a reactor, they must be cooled in water, according to the Department of Energy. Afterwards, the material can be stored in “dry” containers, an arrangement which is considered more stable.

Burkhart said he recently visited with a private landowner in Fremont County who, as in the past, is interested in selling land for the facility. The land purchase would cost an estimated $2 million and it would cost about $400 million to build the facility, “None of which would come from the state,” he said. “It would all come from private enterprise.”

The facility would be operated by a private entity in cooperation with the federal government, which would maintain regulatory control over it, Burkhart added.

Although such a facility would be designated “temporary,” Burkhart said it will most likely become a de facto permanent storage facility because there’s little faith that the federal government will build a permanent one to which “temporary” stockpiles could ultimately be relocated. Many local officials around the country have offered locations for a permanent repository, but communities have ultimately rejected the idea.

Current state statute prohibits a commercial high-level radioactive waste facility unless the federal government establishes a permanent repository.

Burkhart thinks that will likely be challenging in Wyoming too. “Frankly, my opinion would be the government will never have permanent storage,” he said.

By hosting even a “temporary” nuclear fuel waste storage facility, Wyoming could also push for a reprocessing plant to generate even more revenue, Burkhart said. “Currently, the United States does not reprocess nuclear fuel,” he said. “I feel that within the next five years, that will change, and when it changes, wherever the fuel is stored is where they will do the reprocessing.”

Recurring effort

The idea for a temporary, or intermediate, high-level radioactive waste storage facility has been proposed several times in recent decades, most notably in the 1990s.

In 1992, after several years of contentious debate, then Gov. Mike Sullivan vetoed a similar measure, stating in a letter to Fremont County commissioners, “It makes no sense to me as Governor to put this state or its citizens through the agonizing and divisive study and decision making process of further evaluating the risks and benefits of an MRS [monitored retrievable storage] facility.”

In 2011, Sullivan told a group of geologists, “There was huge fear. This struck a chord like I never seen in my office over anything. I had three boxes of letters, pro and con. They were not check-the-box letters. These were coming from people hand-written because of their love for Wyoming and because of their fear of nuclear.”

In 2019, the Legislature formed the Spent Fuel Rods Subcommittee to reexamine the issue, but did not advance legislation.

Proponents see an opportunity, however. The nuclear energy industry is enjoying a resurgence in support and investment, including in Wyoming where the U.S. Department of Energy and Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates are backing the $4 billion Natrium nuclear power plant, and where BWXT Advanced Technologies is considering setting up a microreactor manufacturing hub.

If the U.S. boosts its nuclear energy capacity, according to proponents, the nation will have to grapple with its decades long failure to finally establish a permanent repository for radioactive waste and potentially consider reprocessing the byproduct.

Federal efforts

Federal efforts to establish a permanent repository for high-level radioactive waste are currently led by the Department of Energy through its consent-based siting program — a process for communities to establish broad local support for hosting such a facility.

In 2021, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a license for a storage facility in Andrews, Texas. Last year, the agency also issued a license for a storage facility in Lea County, New Mexico. Both efforts have been tied up in legal challenges and “no work has gone forward on the facilities,” NRC spokesman David McIntyre told WyoFile via email. “There is no permanent repository and really no movement towards one.”

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

This story was posted on August 2, 2024.