The House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on April 29 on nuclear waste containment in light of the pending closure of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant.
Expected to provide testimony are--
-- Rodney McCullum, Senior Director, Fuel & Decommissioning, Nuclear Energy Institute
-- Tom Chiomento, Director, State Government Affairs, Exelon Corporation
-- Doug Brown, Manager, Nuclear Fuel & Analysis, FirstEnergy Solutions
-- Jeffrey Hirt, Engineering Manager, Talen Energy
-- Jim Trapp, Director, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, Region l, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
-- Katherine Warner, Health Physicist, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region 1, Division of Nuclear Material Safety Decommissioning, |SFSl, and Reactor Health Physics Branch
-- David J. Allard, CHP, Acting Deputy Secretary for Waste, Air, Radiation & Remediation, Department of Environmental Protection
-- Eric Epstein, Coordinator, EFMR Monitoring Group, lnc
-- Katie Tubb, Senior Policy Analyst, Energy and Environmental Institute for Economic Freedom, The Heritage Foundation
There are now about 7,560 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste fuel stored at Pennsylvania’s nuclear power plants that would be dealt with if one or more nuclear power plants closed.
Exelon filed a required decommissioning plan with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on April 5 saying it would not begin dismantling Three Mile Island if it did close for 55 years. Spent radioactive fuel would be moved to a new dry cask storage facility onsite by the end of 2022.
A federal bankruptcy judge recently rejected FirstEnergy’s bankruptcy plan in part because it would have allowed the company to walk away from its responsibilities for its coal and nuclear power plants, including Beaver Valley in Pennsylvania.
Providing for long-term care of high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants is a federal government responsibility at public expense, but so far no strategy is in place.
Nuclear power plants have contributed about $40 billion to the federal government over the years to develop the long-term, security storage strategy for high-level waste.
This issue has come up in Senate and House hearings on legislation to add nuclear power to the state's Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Program.
The hearing will be held in Room 60 East Wing of the Main Capitol starting at 9:00 a.m.. Click Here to watch the meeting online.
Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) serves as Majority Chair of the House Environmental Committee and can be contacted by calling 717-783-1707 or sending email to: dmetcalf@pahousegop.com. Rep. Greg Vitali (D-Delaware) serves as Minority Chair and can be contacted by calling 717-787-7647 or sending email to: gvitali@pahouse.net.
(Photo: Dry cask storage system for spent radioactive fuel at decommissioned Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, Nuclear Regulatory Commission.)
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