Category: Radioactive Waste Storage

The Role of Government vs. That of the Private Sector

This is a topic that applies to more than just the energy sector, but it is one that I wrestled with as a U.S. DOE official with significant budget responsibilities. Where does the government fit into the research, development and deployment (RD&D) of emerging energy technologies and where is it appropriate to turn these responsibilities over to the private sector? Where do government interests differ from and overlap with private sector interests? How does one balance the two?

In some ways addressing these questions were some of the most difficult decisions of my DOE management career. My immediate staff, aware of the decisions I faced, often said: “That’s why you get paid the big bucks.” If only that were true!

My thinking on these issues was strongly influenced by my familiarity with the DOE renewable energy program at the end of the Carter Administration. I had been a political appointee in that Administration until leaving in 1979 but I had kept in close touch after that with my former DOE colleagues. Something that burned into my memory was the experience the DOE wind energy program had with the Boeing Corporation. After the oil embargo in 1973-74 there was increasing attention to and budget support for renewable energy programs like wind, solar and others. Boeing was supported by the wind program to develop wind turbines for commercial application, a logical approach given Boeing’s experience with aviation propellers, turbine generators, and related technologies. The problem was that Boeing put up none of its own money in this effort, being fully supported by DOE. As we like to say: they had ‘no skin in the game’.

With the arrival of the Reagan Administration this funding situation changed and 100% support from DOE was no longer possible. In fact, the Reagan Administration tried its best to eliminate DOE’s entire renewable energy program, and even DOE. When this loss of total support became known to Boeing they dropped their participation in DOE’s wind program, and I drew a conclusion that guided my future decisions when I returned to DOE as a senior manager in 1991: no RD&D funding to companies that will not do cost-sharing with the government, with the degree of cost-sharing being a function of the level of risk faced by the private sector concern in carrying out its RD&D responsibilities. Thus, when I was in a position in the 1990’s to make such budget decisions my guiding rules were: at least 25% cost-sharing by the private sector when the risk was high in the early stage of a technology’s development; 50% during most of a technology’s development; and 75% when a technology was approaching commercial application. With respect to this latter point, I believed that the government could help get demonstration units into the field for evaluation and confidence building but that the government had no role in commercialization.

I also believe that government should work closely with the private sector to expedite transfer of emerging technologies to the commercial marketplace. This does not mean that government goals overlap completely with private sector goals, as some may believe but I do not. I see government’s RD&D role as ‘looking down the road’, seeing what’s coming, and doing what’s necessary to protect the public’s longer term interests. In addition, our economic system has assigned the private sector the role of maximizing financials returns to investors. Given this latter assignment of responsibility, private sector goals are of necessity shorter term in nature than those of the federal government. Thus, I see it as governnment’s responsibility to set policy and create a financial environment in which government and private sector goals can overlap to the extent possible. They will never be the same, but this is one place where government officials can earn ‘the big bucks’.

I will conclude by noting some recent public discussion of the private sector’s role in serving the public as well as its shareholders. This has been motivated by several corporations, e.g., IBM, making public their primary goal of maximizing shareholder returns. I leave a discussion of whether this is appropriate for another time and for others to discuss.

Nuclear Waste Storage: A Problem We Must Solve

nuclear

The attached article (Federal Court Revives Yucca Mountain – 18 August 2013), which appeared in a recent issue of the e-journal Energybiz, addresses an important issue – use of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a long-term radioactive waste repository. In principle the discussed Court decision, subject to further appeal, reopens the entire Yucca Mountain issue.

As mentioned in my earlier blog “Nuclear Power” the U.S. has a long-term radioactive waste storage problem that must be addressed, although temporary storage onsite at nuclear power plants gives us time to try to perhaps develop a different and less problematic storage scheme. This was the approach taken by Energy Secretary Chu in the first Obama Administration, along with the appointment of a Blue Ribbon Commission to explore options. The full Commission report (‘Blue Ribbon Commission On America’s Nuclear Future’), released in January 2012, can be found at htp://www.nei.org/corporatesite/media/filefolder/BRC_FinalReport_Jan2012.pdf. A brief summary of its recommendations is shown below:
“The strategy we recommend in this report has eight key elements:
1. A new, consent-based approach to siting future nuclear waste management facilities.
2. A new organization dedicated solely to implementing the waste management program and empowered with the
authority and resources to succeed.
3. Access to the funds nuclear utility ratepayers are providing for the purpose of nuclear waste management.
4. Prompt efforts to develop one or more geologic disposal facilities.
5. Prompt efforts to develop one or more consolidated storage facilities.
6. Prompt efforts to prepare for the eventual large-scale transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste to
consolidated storage and disposal facilities when such facilities become available.
7. Support for continued U.S. innovation in nuclear energy technology and for workforce development.
8. Active U.S. leadership in international efforts to address safety, waste management, non-proliferation, and
security concerns.”

These decisions by Secretary Chu and subsequently by the chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission effectively stopped progress on Yucca development. They have been highly controversial, attacked by many in the nuclear power industry and other nuclear power supporters. Utilities that have long paid into a federal fund for permanent waste storage are also litigating to recover the funds if Yucca does not go forward. A significant political factor is the unrelenting and powerful opposition to Yucca by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Nevada politicians and citizens.

Many ideas have been put forward for long-term radioactive waste storage since the dawn of the nuclear age. These include deep geological storage (e.g., Yucca), disposal in the deep ocean, disposal at deep ocean rifts, burn-up of long half-life transuranic wastes in breeder reactors, and even disposal of wastes in the sun after placement in earth orbit by rockets (with obvious risk factors!). The theoretical attractiveness of the latter scheme is that it removes the waste from the earth and it takes relatively little energy to go from earth orbit to collision with the sun (although the energy to reach earth orbit is not insignificant).

The long-term waste problem is part of what Alvin Weinberg called nuclear power’s Faustian Bargain – accepting the benefits of nuclear power along with its long-term and problematic legacies. Most of the accumulated wastes today are from civilian nuclear power but development of nuclear weapons has also contributed a significant share.

So how does one solve this problem, which has to be solved and has implications for an untold number of future generations? Several countries with nuclear power plants are actively researching this issue, and deep geological storage seems to be the favorite so far. There are no easy answers, given the time scales involved (e.g., plutonium, a by-product of fission, has a radioactive half-life of more than 22,000 years), but an answer is needed soon because of the growing amounts of waste and their vulnerability, in above-surface storage, to natural disasters or terrorist attacks. Fukishima is a clear example of the former.

What I believe is needed is a speed-up of U.S. government examination of this issue and increased and informed public discussion of the options. Increased international cooperation on the issue is also needed. Nuclear power issues are not just technocratic issues, as some in the nuclear power industry have long argued. The broader public needs to be involved in decisions about long-term storage if they are to receive needed public support and if civilian nuclear power is to have a shot at a long-term future. And not finding a solution is not an option – the waste problem exists and that genie, along with the ability to produce nuclear weapons, is out of the bottle.