The San Onofre nuclear plant achieved a significant milestone recently, moving the last spent nuclear fuel assemblies from wet storage in pools to dry storage in robust welded, stainless steel canisters. The fuel transfer campaign, which began in January 2018, comprised 73 canisters that were loaded and transported to dry storage. Those canisters join 50 more that were previously loaded and stored beginning in 2003.

San Onofre is no different from every other nuclear plant in the U.S., either operating or decommissioned, with regard to the disposition of its spent fuel. The federal government, under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, was to construct and accept spent nuclear fuel from the nation’s reactors and place it in a deep geologic repository.

That was scheduled to begin in 1998. To date, approximately $15 billion has been spent on licensing and developing the chosen location, Yucca Mountain, Nevada. But the Obama administration stopped plans to move forward with Yucca, and the Trump administration announced earlier this year it would not allocate further spending for the dormant project.

“This issue has consumed time by the decade and dollars by the billions, with a solution proving elusive. We need to change that, together, and move this fuel out of Southern California,” Doug Bauder, San Onofre’s chief nuclear officer, recently wrote for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

So, the question continues to be, what’s next for the spent nuclear fuel at San Onofre and elsewhere?

“There are two types of challenges to establishing a long-term storage or disposal solution in the U.S. The first is scientific and technical and the second could be called sociopolitical,” said Tom Isaacs, independent strategic advisor to SCE for Nuclear Waste Management. “Experience has shown that the sociopolitical challenges are perhaps more daunting in the U.S. and have been in many other countries as well.”

Spent or used nuclear fuel is radioactive for a long time, requiring protection for many thousands of years. Storing spent fuel has been done successfully for decades with no public health or safety issues and can continue to be stored for decades longer at nuclear plant sites. But that is not the needed permanent solution. In the case of San Onofre, the land belongs to the U.S. Navy as part of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. Once the plant is dismantled, the land will be returned to the Navy, after the fuel is relocated, of course.

With Yucca Mountain in limbo, other options for off-site storage are being pursued. Known as Consolidated Interim Storage, these privately owned sites would act as temporary storage facilities that would house spent fuel until a national disposal facility is licensed and built. Currently, one such storage project is located in New Mexico, the other in Texas.

SCE is looking at these sites as part of its review of the full range of options for relocating San Onofre’s spent nuclear fuel. Last year, SCE contracted with the North Wind Group to develop a strategic plan, as well as a conceptual transportation plan for moving the fuel. Both plans will be released early next year.

“This initiative is a priority for SCE,” Bauder said. “We want to work with other like-minded people to solve this problem. We also want to be ready to move our spent fuel off site as soon as a facility becomes available.”

The strategic plan will not select a single option, but rather a portfolio of potential alternatives, and recommend actions that SCE can take to advance those that appear most promising.

The plan will be durable and flexible so as to position SCE to seize opportunities as the spent fuel management environment changes over time.

“I am not aware of similar efforts to those of SCE to identify and analyze options in depth for having the spent fuel removed, to prepare so that the spent fuel is ready to be shipped when the opportunity arises, and put together a plan to attempt to catalyze needed actions,” Isaacs said.

Isaacs, the former director of the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Waste Office of Policy, also served as the lead advisor for the presidentially established Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. He says it’s ironic that the strong safety record of dry spent fuel storage, now spanning nearly 35 years, makes it difficult for the country to muster the political will for action. Still, he’s hopeful.

“As Victor Hugo said, ‘nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come,’” he said. “As a nation, we’re overdue. I am pleased that SCE is attempting to help change that.”