Nuclear Fuel and Waste: The Report of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, Senate Hearings, Comprehensive Information on Yucca Mountain, Fukushima, Reactors, Radiation Issues

This reproduction of the full report of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (BRC), issued in 2012, provides comprehensive information on the management of the nuclear reactor fuel cycle and the disposal of radioactive waste, with insights provided by the Fukushima accident. Senate hearings about the report are also included. The executive summary states:

America's nuclear waste management program is at an impasse. The Obama Administration's decision to halt work on a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is but the latest indicator of a policy that has been troubled for decades and has now all but completely broken down. The approach laid out under the 1987 Amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA)—which tied the entire U.S. high-level waste management program to the fate of the Yucca Mountain site—has not worked to produce a timely solution for dealing with the nation's most hazardous radioactive materials. The United States has traveled nearly 25 years down the current path only to come to a point where continuing to rely on the same approach seems destined to bring further controversy, litigation, and protracted delay. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (the Commission) was chartered to recommend a new strategy for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. We approached this task from different perspectives but with a shared sense of urgency. Put simply, this nation's failure to come to grips with the nuclear waste issue has already proved damaging and costly and it will be more damaging and more costly the longer it continues: damaging to prospects for maintaining a potentially important energy supply option for the future, damaging to state—federal relations and public confidence in the federal government's competence, and damaging to America's standing in the world—not only as a source of nuclear technology and policy expertise but as a leader on global issues of nuclear safety, non-proliferation, and security. Continued stalemate is also costly—to utility ratepayers, to communities that have become unwilling hosts of long-term nuclear waste storage facilities, and to U.S. taxpayers who face mounting liabilities, already running into billions of dollars, as a result of the failure by both the executive and legislative branches to meet federal waste management commitments.

Contents: 1. INTRODUCTION * 2. FOUNDATIONS OF A NEW STRATEGY * 2.1 Elements of a Successful Strategy * 2.2 Core Interests and Objectives for U.S. Waste Management Policy * 2.2.1 Public and Occupational Health and Safety * 2.2.2 Environmental Protection * 2.2.3 Cost-Effectiveness * 2.2.4 Non-Proliferation and National Security * 2.3 Core Values and Principles for a Successful Waste Management Program * 2.3.1 Ethical Responsibility * 2.3.2 Fairness * 2.3.3 Transparency * 2.3.4 Values * 2.3.5 Informed Participation * 2.3.6 Governance and Leadership * 3. TECHNICAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND * 3.1 Overview of Nuclear Fuel Cycle * 3.2 Nature and Longevity of Hazard Posed by Different Types of Nuclear Waste * 3.3 Scale of Waste Management Challenge in United States * 3.3.1 Current Inventory of Spent Nuclear Fuel Being Managed by U.S. Commercial Nuclear Power Industry. * 3.3.2 Current Inventory of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Waste Being Managed by DOE * 3.3.3 Navy Spent Fuel * 3.4 History of Nuclear Waste Management Policy in United States * 3.4.1 Early U.S. Policy on Nuclear Waste Management (1940s-1982) * 3.4.2 U.S. Policy under Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1982-present) * 3.4.3 Experience with Yucca Mountain Repository Program * 3.5 Utility Initiatives * 3.6 Current Waste Acceptance Commitments and Litigation * 3.7 Linkages between Back-End of Fuel Cycle and Future of Nuclear Power * 3.7.1 State Moratoria * 3.7.2 NRC Waste Confidence Proceeding * 3.7.3 Impact of Waste Management Uncertainty on Nuclear Plant Investment Decisions * 3.8 International Context/Comparison