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CHARLESTON -- After being selected earlier in September to participate in a new nuclear energy program, Gov. Patrick Morrisey and state energy officials submitted a letter Wednesday night declining to proceed after the governor said the state would not be a dumping ground for waste.
The state Office of Energy sent a letter to Marla Morales, the acting deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), stating that West Virginia would be unable to submit a hosting agreement by Wednesday’s deadline to be considered for the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus program
“On behalf of the (Office of Energy), thank you and the (DOE) for considering West Virginia to host the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC),” wrote Office of Energy Director Nicholas Preservati.
“While we are unable to execute the Hosting Agreement and commit fully to its requirements, West Virginia remains fully committed to supporting President (Donald) Trump and (DOE) Secretary (Christopher) Wright’s vision for a national nuclear renaissance,” the letter continued. “Please know that we stand ready and willing to support the DOE, the NLIC initiative and future NLIC recipients.”
Morrisey announced West Virginia’s selection earlier this month as one of six states being considered for one of these campuses. In a statement Wednesday night, Morrisey spokesperson Lars Dalseide echoed the Office of Energy letter.
“President Trump and Secretary Wright are working to restore American energy dominance, and the Governor is proud to stand with them as we build the nuclear industry America needs,” Dalseide said. “West Virginia is ready to help lead America's nuclear renaissance. We want the power generation, manufacturing, investment, and jobs that come with it, but we are not prepared to proceed with the Host Agreement for the (NLIC) at this time.”
Morrisey and the Governor’s Office came out over the weekend on social media stating that he was directing the Office of Energy to ensure that any proposed NLIC sites would be considered only for nuclear electric generation and/or manufacturing, not hosting spent nuclear fuel storage, after some Republican lawmakers raised concerns following a story last week by the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
“Here’s the truth: We are pursuing nuclear generation and manufacturing to bring high-paying jobs to West Virginia,” Morrisey said. “Our recent application to the U.S. Department of Energy was part of that effort. We want to build on our existing strengths in coal and natural gas to create more jobs and opportunity, stronger communities, and a higher standard of living. But West Virginia will not be a dumping ground for nuclear waste. Period.”
The NLIC program, first announced by the Department of Energy in January, would select a state to co-stage various industrial programs aimed at growing the use of nuclear energy in the United States and improving the technologies within the nuclear industry, such as the possible use of small modular nuclear reactors in manufacturing and electricity generation.
A NLIC could be a one-stop shop for the fabrication of nuclear fuel for reactors, enrichment, taking used fuel for reprocessing and waste storage. Depending on the resources of the state where a NLIC might be located, it could also play host to a nuclear reactor for power generation for advanced manufacturing and large-scale data centers.
The DOE announced the NLIC project earlier this year, seeking requests for information from states on Jan. 28 with a deadline of April 1. The first five states -- Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Idaho -- were selected for consideration by the DOE in July, signing memorandums of understanding.
“Negotiations are ongoing between the Department of Energy and the six states interested in potentially hosting a (NLIC),” a DOE spokesperson said by email Wednesday afternoon.
West Virginia’s MOU -- first obtain by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by the Charleston Gazette-Mail and WV MetroNews -- was signed on Sept. 2 by Morrisey and Wright. FOIA requests were also submitted by this news outlet Tuesday and Wednesday, which are still pending.
That MOU requires the host agreement submitted by the state to include details on infrastructure to handle the safe disposal of nuclear waste; address the acceptance and management of out-of-state used nuclear fuel, spent nuclear fuel, high-level radioactive waste, and greater than Class C radioactive waste; and cover any approvals required under the interstate compact system on low-level radioactive waste.
In the state’s request for information sent to the DOE on April 1, also obtained through FOIA requests by the Charleston Gazette-Mail and WV MetroNews, the Office of Energy said it was willing to “serve as the nation's central hub for nuclear fuel recycling, interim storage, and long-term materials stewardship.”
“West Virginia is approaching nuclear energy with enthusiasm, recognizing its potential to
become a national leader in the sector. The state is strategically positioning itself to develop the
infrastructure needed to support a full, end-to-end Innovation Campus in the future,” the document stated.
Laying out an order of priorities, the document placed “consolidated interim storage facility” at the top of the list, following by research for final long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel in boreholes or engineered caverns, advanced nuclear reactor deployment, research into nuclear fuel recycling, front-end operations for fuel enrichment and fabrication, and manufacturing opportunities for the nuclear industry.
“West Virginia has identified partially spent and spent nuclear fuel streams management as a
near-term actionable strategic opportunity,” according to the document. “West Virginia proposes anchoring the (NLIC) around advanced fuel recycling, materials recovery, and responsible long-term nuclear materials stewardship. This opportunity would anchor the early phase of its Innovation Campus' lifecycle functions.”
Office of Energy officials said it would seek a license to develop a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in conjunction with a private-sector partner to store spent or partially spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned or active power plants. The document’s authors said a CISF could become a resource for neighboring states with nuclear power plants.
According to the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, spent nuclear fuel is first placed in water pools at the power plants, where it can spend years before being moved to dry storage, where the fuel is placed in metal or concrete containers and stored at the power plants in interim facilities.
The dry casks are designed to withstand impacts and natural disasters. According to the NRC, there has never been an incident with dry casks. There remains no permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel, though according to the DOE, the current 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel could fit on a single football field stacked less than 10-yards deep.
“Nuclear waste has been stored at reactors safely for decades, and (the NRC) do a lot of inspections,” said Rod Baltzer, CEO of California-based Deep Isolation, a drilling company working on storage of spent nuclear fuel in deep boreholes. “They expect those (dry casks) would last 100 years, and then you’d need a permanent disposal solution.”
“I think the consensus is that permanent disposal is longer term a safer solution, but stored in the interim near reactors, dry cask storage has been very safe,” Baltzer said in a phone interview Wednesday.
Four possible NLIC sites were included in the state’s request for information to the DOE: the Hobet site along U.S. Rt. 119 in Boone County, the former Century Aluminum site near Ravenswood; the Casto site along I-77 in Jackson County, and the No. 4 Old Standard site in Jefferson County.
During a meeting last week, Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee Shelley Moore Capito said that the NLIC program was meant to both encourage innovation in nuclear energy and advanced manufacturing while also spreading out the burden of storing spent nuclear fuel until a permanent location is found.
"In return for the economic benefits associated with these facilities, the host state would agree to be the permanent disposal site for a portion of our nation's nuclear waste inventory,” said Capito, R-W.Va. "First and foremost, history has shown that nuclear waste management is a multi-generational infrastructure project. A successful policy must be built for the long term and durable, with strong bipartisan buy-in from Congress.”
Jim Kotcon, the conservation chair for the West Virginia chapter of Sierra Club, said in a statement Wednesday evening that there is no confidence that the Morrisey administration can be trusted with regulating nuclear energy in the state. Even if the state does not allow for on-site spent nuclear fuel storage, Kotcon said the state’s eagerness to fast-track permit approvals and lack of community input concern him.
“West Virginia should be investing in the cheapest, fastest, cleanest, and safest energy sources first, and nuclear is none of those,” Kotcon said. “The US-DOE proposes that these (NLICs) would offer fuel fabrication, reprocessing, and waste storage, but West Virginians simply do not trust our state agencies to do it well ... We do not want West Virginia to be winning the race to the bottom, but Gov. Morrisey seems determined to do just that.”