Plans to dispose of radioactive waste in a deep geologic repository have been stalled for the last five years, so the U.S. Department of Energy is now trying to develop a strategy for the siting of nuclear facilities, such as for interim storage and final geologic disposal.

Key to DOE’s strategy is “consent-based siting,” an approach which aims to minimize the political controversy from local communities and the state.

But how would such a process work in practice? And can the diverse range of stakeholders involved realistically be expected to reach a consensus on such a controversial issue?

Critical questions like these were the main focus of the third Reset of U.S. Nuclear Waste Management Strategy and Policy Series meeting held at Stanford last week.

Scientific experts, government officials and stakeholders at the state, tribal, national and international levels were all invited to discuss strategies to move forward a program that is now in stalemate as the growing inventories of spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants and high-level defense waste continues to accumulate at sites across the country. Moving forward with the concept that communities and states have a say in the process requires considerable input from the concerned and affected parties, many of whom were represented at this meeting.

The Gordian Knot: Nuclear Waste Management in the United States

In 2008, the Department of Energy submitted a license application for a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Politics, changes in legislation, lawsuits and ultimately a lack of public trust were among many reasons that plans for the Yucca Mountain repository were not realized. In the absence of a way forward, spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power reactors remains stranded at over 70 sites around the country.

And in another recent blow to America’s nuclear waste storage program, the government’s only deep geological repository for high-level transuranic nuclear (TRU) military waste stopped receiving waste two years ago. A release of radioactivity due to unanticipated chemical reactions in a drum of waste lead to the temporary closure of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico after 15 years of operation.

A Question of Consent

Last March, President Obama directed the DOE to start planning for the development of a defense-only repository for high-level nuclear waste. At the same time, the DOE announced that it would proceed in parallel to address storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants around the country.

A shipment of transuranic waste from the defense industry heads for long-term storage at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in this photo from 2012.

Kotek served as staff director to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future from 2010–2012, which recommended the consent-based strategy for locating nuclear waste facilities, such as a geologic repository. He acknowledged that previous top-down approaches haven’t worked and said the DOE is now seeking public input on how to design a consent-based siting approach by which communities are recognized as partners in the management and disposal of the waste.

“We aim to implement such a system incrementally, to ensure safe and secure operations, to build and maintain public trust and confidence, and to adapt our approach based on lessons learned,” Kotek said.

“As a first step, we will work collaboratively with the public, with interested communities, and with Congress to begin identifying potential partners in this effort.”

The Allocation of Power

States, tribes and local communities all want to have a major say over federal decisions concerning waste repositories, and they want the clear-cut ability to say “no” or “yes” to repositories or nuclear facilities in their jurisdiction.

John Heaton with the Carlsbad Department of Development in New Mexico said he believed the scientific work at Sandia National Laboratories was key to the community’s initial consent to build the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in their region, and their willingness to reopen the plant in the near future.

“We already had independent monitoring in place at WIPP, and we are expecting to reopen by the end of the year with better safety measures,” said Heaton.

In contrast, for decades, the Shoshone Bannock Tribe in Idaho never made any agreements with the DOE on radioactive waste shipments traveling through their land. Instead, the DOE worked directly with the state, without dealing with the tribe.

“The state does not speak for the tribes, any more than we speak for the state,” said Talia Martin, DOE program director for the Shoshone Bannock Tribe.

“We’re waiting to hear how the DOE is going to interact with the tribes. Will it be a partnership or will they repeat the past where they negotiated with the state and not with us?”

In Nevada, the state consistently opposed the proposed geological repository at Yucca Mountain, but local communities were generally supportive. Nye County officials in Nevada are concerned that the consent-based siting effort by the DOE will only delay waste disposal progress. Nye County is committed to the resumption of Yucca Mountain licensing hearings.

“I believe an individual, well-informed on the ins and outs of waste repositories are generally of the opinion that Yucca Mountain would be the least expensive and fastest resolution to move the ultimate disposal of nuclear waste and high level defense waste,” said Cash Jaszczak, staff consultant for the Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office.

Finding a resolution for the different positions of state, tribal and local communities is at the heart of the design of a consent-based process.

An International Perspective

A panel of international speakers from Canada, Finland, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom shared the stories of their own national programs and their successes and failures.

Kathryn Shaver from Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization listens to a speaker during a steering committee meeting for the Reset of U.S. Nuclear Waste Management Strategy and Policy Series.

In Sweden, the industry producing the waste takes full responsibility for its disposal.

“I find it almost exotic that the utilities in the United States, the producers, can pay their way out of responsibility to the state,” said Saida Engstrom, vice president of SKB, the organization that manages Sweden’s nuclear waste.

“One has to find the incentives to have utilities committed to working towards a solution. I think if you produce waste, you should not be given a free pass.”

France and the U.K. are also pursuing public engagement as an integral part of the strategy for their national programs. But it hasn’t always been a smooth process. U.K. Head of Geologic Disposal Bruce Cairns described a consent-based process that failed in obtaining the consent of all involved parties, but he also described a new process that will give it another try.

Hope for a Solution

Rod Ewing, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, said that it is essential to have these extended discussions so that a new strategy has a greater chance of success.

“In another 30 years, the U.S. cannot afford to find itself in the same place that it is now,” said Ewing, who also serves as Frank Stanton professor in nuclear security at Stanford University.

Ewing said it was also important to include students in the conversation, so they understand that they will inherit the problem, and they are part of the future hope to find a safe, trustworthy, consent-based siting solution.

Stanford PhD candidate Katlyn Turner, who’s studying Geological and Environmental Sciences at Stanford, said the nuclear waste issue was just as critical as global warming.

“Regardless of how you feel about it, we have to deal with it,” said Katlyn Turner, a PhD student in Geological and Environmental Sciences at Stanford.

“My generation should frame it as this is waste that needs to be taken care of the same way we need to take care of C02, global warming, coal and other pollutants.”

The Steering Committee will use the input from this meeting, as well as its own extensive experience in waste management issues, to provide advice and recommendations on how the consent-based process might be applied to the U.S. program. It will also make recommendations on other issues such as the question of creating a new, independent waste management organization to oversee the consent-based process.

The Reset meeting was supported by the Precourt Institute for Energy and hosted by Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

The next meeting of the Reset series will be In Washington, D.C. in May at George Washington University and will focus on the integration of the waste management system from the production of the waste to its final disposal in a geologic repository.

Stanford experts from the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) spoke with media in Asia and the United States about the dynamics on the Korean Peninsula following recent provocations by North Korea; a roundup of those citations is below.

The United Nations imposed a new set of sanctions against North Korea on March 2 in response to the country’s fourth nuclear test in January and subsequent rocket launch in February of this year. Shorenstein APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin offered his view in an interview with Dong-a Ilbo:

“The new sanctions are unprecedentedly strong and comprehensive, but the dominant view is pessimistic,” he said, emphasizing that the sanctions’ effectiveness stands largely on the shoulders of China, which is North Korea’s largest trading partner.

“Only if China doesn't fizzle out after a few months – but continuously enforces the sanctions – will we see any meaningful effect,” he said.

Shin also called upon South Korea to play a leadership role in dealing with North Korea because the United States has only limited interest in solving the nuclear problem, and China, will not change its approach and continue to move according to its own interests.

Shin relayed a similar message in an interview with Maeil Shinmun last December. South Korea must break from its own perception that it is the “balancer” between China and the United States. South Korea, often described as a “shrimp among whales,” should instead strive to play a larger role as a “dolphin,” he said.

Furthermore, Shin told Maeil that the U.S.-Korea relationship and the U.S.-China relationship are very different from each other, and should be viewed as they are. He pointed out that the U.S.-Korea relationship is an alliance where the two countries act accordingly as one body, whereas the China-Korea relationship is a strategic partnership insofar as the two countries cooperate on selective issues of mutual interest.

In a separate interview with the Associated Press, David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, was asked about the possibility of peace talks with North Korea as an alternative to or parallel with the U.N. sanctions. Straub said “it would not make sense” and that “there is no support for such an approach in Washington” because of the strategic partnership between China and North Korea. He also told Voice of America that the new sanctions will significantly increase the political, diplomatic, and psychological pressures on North Korea's leaders to rethink their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

It has been five years since the emergency sirens sounded at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant following the massive 2011 earthquake and subsequent devastating tsunami. The partial meltdown of three reactors caused approximately 170,000 refugees to be displaced from their homes, and radiation releases and public outcry forced the Japanese government to temporarily shut down all of their nuclear power plants. The events at Fukushima Daiichi sent waves not only through Japan but also throughout the international nuclear industry. Rodney Ewing, Frank Stanton professor of nuclear security at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, outlines three key lessons to be taken from the tragedy at Fukushima.

Lesson One: Avoid characterizing the Fukushima tragedy as an 'accident'

One of the biggest lessons to be learned from Fukushima Daiichi revolves around the language used to describe nuclear disasters. In the media and in scientific papers, the event was frequently described as an accident, but this does not properly capture the cause of the event, which was a failure of the safety analysis.

As an example, Ewing points specifically to the domino chain of events that led to the partial meltdown at reactors 1 and 3. Following the powerful magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the power plant automatically shut down its reactors, as designed. Emergency generators immediately started in order to maintain circulation of coolant over the nuclear fuel, a critical process to avoid heating and eventual meltdown. But the tsunami that followed flooded the diesel engines that were supplying power, and so cooling could no longer be maintained.

"The Japanese people and government were certainly well acquainted with the possibility of tsunamis," said Ewing, the Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security and senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation in the Freeman Spogli Institute. "Communities had alert systems. But somehow, this risk didn't manifest itself in the preparation and protection of the backup power for the Fukushima reactors. The backup power systems, the diesel generators for reactors 1 through 5, were low along the coast where they were flooded and failed. They could have been located farther back and higher, like they were at reactor 6. These were clearly failures in design, not an accident.

"This is why when I refer to the tragedy at Fukushima, it was not an accident," said Ewing, who is also a professor of geological sciences in Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. "When some speak of such an event as an 'act of God,' this has the effect of avoiding the responsibility for the failed safety analysis. We need to use language that doesn't seek to place blame, but does establish cause and responsibility."

Lesson Two: Rethink the meaning of 'risk'

Shortly following the disaster at Fukushima, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) received heavy criticism for its lack of planning and response. For Ewing, this criticism speaks to a larger issue: "We need to rethink what we mean by 'risk' when we perform risk assessments. Risk is more than the loss of life and property."

Reassessing risk also begins with changing our language, Ewing said. When we say a risk like an earthquake or tsunami is rare or unexpected, even when the geological record shows it has happened and will happen again, it greatly lessens the urgency with which we ought to act and prepare.

"It can be that the risk analysis works against safety, in the sense that if the risk analysis tells us that something's safe, then you don't take the necessary precautions," he said. "The Titanic had too few lifeboats because it was said to be 'unsinkable.' Fukushima is similar in that the assumption that the reactors were 'safe' during an earthquake led to the failure to consider the impact of a tsunami."

When evaluating risk, Ewing recommends that we carefully consider the way in which we frame the question of risk. For example, a typical risk assessment usually only considers the fate of a single reactor at a specific location. But perhaps that question should be asked in a different way. "You could ask, 'What if I have a string of reactors along the eastern coast of Japan? What is the risk of a tsunami hitting one of those reactors over their lifetime, say, 100 years?'" he said. "In this case, the probability of a reactor experiencing a tsunami is increased, particularly if one considers the geologic record for evidence of tsunamis."

Ewing acknowledges that incorporating geological hazards into a standard risk assessment has proved to be difficult because of the long recurrence intervals of damaging events. But ongoing research at Stanford Earth continues to analyze the seismic and tsunami risks around Japan and over the entire world. Professor Paul Segall and graduate student Andreas Mavrommatis analyze dense GPS networks and small repeating earthquakes to better understand unprecedented accelerating fault slip that took place in advance of the surprisingly large 2011 earthquake. Associate Professor Eric Dunham, graduate student Gabe Lotto and alum Jeremy Kozdon create mathematical models to better understand the relationships between fault motions, ocean floor properties and tsunami generation. And Assistant Professor Jenny Suckale is working to improve tsunami early warning messages that will allow populations in Indonesia to receive the specific information they need to prepare. This research, and more, helps quantify some of the geological risks that should have been considered.

Lesson Three: Nuclear energy is strongly linked to the future of renewables

In the five years since the tragedy at Fukushima, Ewing has seen a number of ripple effects throughout the nuclear industry that will have a great impact on the future of renewable energy resources.

In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has required that all reactor sites reassess risks from natural disasters. This includes not only earthquakes and tsunamis, but also flooding risks, particularly in the central United States. But this reaction wasn't shared globally.

"In countries like Germany and Switzerland, the Fukushima tragedy was the last straw," Ewing said. "This was particularly true in Germany, where there has always been a strong public position against nuclear power and against geologic waste disposal. Politically, Germany announced that it will shut down its nuclear power plants."

In a region like Germany, which is far more seismically stable than Japan, this move away from nuclear power marks an important – and expensive – transition for global energy systems. During the recent 21st Conference of the Parties meeting in Paris, Germany and a large number of other countries pledged to reduce carbon emissions.

"To me, Germany is a wonderful experiment," Ewing said. "Germany is a very technologically advanced country that is going to try to do without nuclear energy while simultaneously reducing its carbon emissions. This will require a significant investment in renewable energy sources, and that will be costly. But it's a cost that many Germans seem willing to pay."

As recently as 10 years ago, nuclear energy was quickly gaining support as a carbon-free power source. While the costs of renewables such as solar and wind remain more expensive than some fossil fuels, the steady decline in their costs and the boom of natural gas combined with the tragedy at Fukushima has once again muddied the waters of many countries' energy future.

"The biggest need for the U.S. right now is to have a well-defined energy policy," Ewing said. "With an energy policy, we would have a clear picture of how our country will address its energy needs."

David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, tells AP that China and North Korea have ulterior motives in demanding the replacement of the Korean peninsula armistice agreement with a peace treaty.

In an interview with South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper, David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, argues that South Korea's closure of its joint industrial park at Kaesong was a necessary response to North Korea's fourth nuclear test and latest rocket launch.

In a recent interview with Yonhap News, David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, says "Although the United States and the PRC certainly have differences [in dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue], they pale in copmarison to U.S.-Soviet differences."

Yonhap News article in English (February 12, 2016)

Straub also offers, in an extended interview with South Korea's Segye Ilbo newspaper, his thoughts on Pyongyang's motivations for pursuing nuclear weapons. He argues that the appropriate policy response is to continue to increase pressure on the regime to convince it that nuclear weapons will bring more costs than benefits, while holding open the door to good-faith negotiations to resolve peninsular issues. 

Segye Ilbo article in Korean (January 8, 2016)