As the Union of Concerned Scientists has pointed out, “the proposal is imprudent from both a safety and financial perspective because it entails the added risks and costs from transporting spent fuel twice as often as necessary.”
In other words, it doesn't make sense to transport the stuff first to Skull Valley for temporary storage and then again to a permanent repository, whether or not that ends up being Yucca Mountain, Nev.
It makes more sense to store the spent fuel at the reactor sites until a permanent repository opens, then transport it once to that burial plot.
Even if the United States were to decide to reprocess the spent fuel for subsequent re-use, as is currently being discussed, it would be folly to send it all to a central interim storage site in Utah, then pack it off somewhere else for reprocessing.
Besides, about 25 reactors out of 70 across the nation already use dry-cask storage on site, the same technology that would be used in Utah, to contain excess spent fuel assemblies.
None of this has deterred PFS from making a pitch to a congressional subcommittee to sell space at its Skull Valley parking lot to the federal government for interim storage.
A bit of background: Under contracts with electric utilities, the Energy Department was supposed to take the spent nuclear fuel off the utilities' hands in 1998. But the federal government can't because its proposed permanent site - Yucca Mountain - isn't ready, and maybe never will be. That has exposed Uncle Sam to billions of dollars in potential legal damages.
But the answer to the dilemma is not PFS. Rather, the Energy Department should take title to the stuff and pay the utilities to store it in dry casks at the reactor sites.
Moving it to Skull Valley would only expose millions of Utahns and other Americans to unnecessary transport risks.
