Q: Why is Yucca Mountain, Nev., the federal government’s location for a deep geologic repository for the safe storage of used nuclear fuel?

A: The Nuclear Waste Policy Act required an examination of nine sites in six states. Several government agencies and scientific organizations participated in environmental studies and scientific evaluations of these sites. After a 1986 DOE study ranking Yucca Mountain, Nev., first among these sites, Congress amended the law in 1987 and directed DOE to focus its scientific and environmental investigation entirely on Yucca Mountain.

All aspects of the geological, hydrological and geochemical environment have been studied, including a detailed evaluation of how conditions might evolve over thousands of years at Yucca Mountain.

In 2002, based on these studies, Congress and the president approved the Yucca Mountain site. In 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled on several challenges to this approval by repository opponents and fully affirmed the site decision.

To date, DOE has spent more than 25 years and $10 billion conducting a scientific evaluation of Yucca Mountain as the site of a nuclear waste repository. This work forms the foundation of the department’s recent license application seeking approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build and operate the repository.

The ongoing NRC licensing process thoroughly will test and verify all of the scientific and technical information supporting the development of the repository before any authorization is given to construct it.

Q: What is the Yucca Mountain licensing process all about?

A: The next step for Yucca Mountain is the federal licensing process. DOE submitted an application for construction of the repository at Yucca Mountain to the NRC in June 2008. This application is now under review at the NRC. If the NRC approves construction, DOE must subsequently obtain separate approval from the NRC to operate the facility.

Although licensing a repository is a first for both DOE and the NRC, very little about the licensing process itself is new. The NRC has licensed the nation’s 104 currently operating commercial reactors and other nuclear facilities such as uranium-enrichment plants and fuel storage facilities.

The NRC is using the same rigorous approach to regulation in its review of the Yucca Mountain application. In practice, this means the NRC will focus on issues most important to safety during each phase of the licensing process. The NRC also has undertaken a considerable effort over the past 20 years specifically preparing for the Yucca Mountain licensing process to ensure a technically sound review of the application.

In this case, the NRC’s proven regulatory practices are applied over a phased approach uniquely suited to the long-term mission of a repository. Accordingly, licensing Yucca Mountain is a three-step process:

• DOE begins the process by submitting the license application to construct the repository; this was accomplished in June 2008.
• When the facility is complete, perhaps a decade or more from now, DOE will apply for an amendment to the license to receive and possess waste at the repository.
• Once all the waste is placed inside Yucca Mountain, a process expected to take 100 years or more, and monitoring and performance studies are complete, DOE will apply for another amendment to close the facility.

At each step of the process, the NRC’s scientific and technical staff will exhaustively scrutinize every aspect of DOE’s work. The NRC will prepare dozens of requests for additional information to which DOE must respond to support the staff’s review. In some cases, DOE may need to amend its application or make changes to the repository design to satisfy NRC requirements. 

After all NRC requests for additional information have been satisfied, the NRC staff will prepare a safety evaluation report. This report, along with DOE’s application and a consideration of challenges made by parties intervening in the process, will form the basis on which the NRC makes a licensing determination at each step of the process.

Further, the granting of a license to receive and possess used nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain will require DOE to assure that an extensive confirmatory scientific research program is in place during repository development. If DOE’s conclusions are found to be incorrect, decisions may be adjusted or reversed at any time.