Federal nuclear regulators caught heat today from a high-profile presidential panel investigating storage options for U.S. nuclear waste.

Members of the Blue Ribbon Commission admonished the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its slow response to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that damaged reactors and spent-fuel pools at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex.

"So you're saying that at this time, as a result of the Japanese accident, there is nothing that needs to be done in the American nuclear reactors process," former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), co-chairman of the Blue Ribbon Commission, asked an NRC staffer. "It seems to me, 60 days after this accident you ought to be able to have reached some very firm conclusions about what, if anything, is necessary."

Lawrence Kokajko, the acting deputy director of NRC's Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards, said the agency to date has found nothing that undermines the agency's confidence in the U.S. nuclear fleet and that a complex safety review currently under way could generate recommendations for regulators and licensees.

"It also reflects on the question the president has asked us about the back end of the fuel cycle, because a portion of the back end of the fuel cycle is at Fukushima," said Albert Carnesale, who sits on the panel and is also a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Kokajko said he would not have more information until NRC completes its safety review this summer and issues public reports.

John Rowe, the chairman of Exelon Corp., defended the commission and the nuclear industry in what he called "the worm's perspective on the bird." The NRC, he said, has a long history of gathering and incorporating crucial safety information to make U.S. reactors safer.

NRC acknowledged that about 400 fuel assemblies were in dry cask storage at the Fukushima site and were stored at a higher elevation and farther away from the shore than the plant's six reactors. The dry casks were affected by the tsunami, Kokajko said, but he did not believe they were knocked over, adding that the commission is reviewing the robustness of dry storage systems.

President Obama created the Blue Ribbon Commission after pulling support for developing a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. He directed the panel to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.

The panel's subcommittees are presenting draft recommendations for the full committee's consideration today, including one on an interim storage system.

That system could include one or more interim storage units and be paid for by the Treasury Department's Nuclear Waste Fund, which is receiving payments now from utilities. Members of one subcommittee recommended the first fuel transferred to the new facility come from nine decommissioned U.S. reactors. Phil Sharp, a member of the presidential panel, said the sites could be established under existing legislation but would have to be licensed by the NRC and accepted by their communities.

The committee will formulate recommendations for storing, processing and disposing of civilian and defense nuclear waste. A draft report is expected in July and a final report next January.

Yucca off the table

The commission will not be reviewing the use of Yucca Mountain as a repository -- a point of high contention -- even though the federal government has spent more than $12 billion on the site. Instead, the commission will look at alternatives for housing more than 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel currently being stored near reactors in 33 states, which is expected to double by 2055 (Greenwire, May 10).

Allison Macfarlane, a member of the panel and an associate professor at George Mason University, said financial concerns are preventing NRC from mandating that spent nuclear fuel currently being stored in wet pools across the nation be transferred to dry storage systems.

"This is not a complicated problem; the only sticking point is the price tag, which isn't really that high relative to losing a reactor," Macfarlane said. "It just seems to me it's fairly straightforward to carry this out; you just figure out who you attach that cost to and move on."

Jennifer Uhle, deputy director of NRC's Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, said licensees must demonstrate under NRC rules that the only heat generated in spent fuel pools comes from cooling rods, not the fission process, as well as showing there is adequate instrumentation and heat removal from the pool.

Macfarlane asked why regulators are not forcing licensees to move the fuel into dry cask storage systems, which would free up more space in spent fuel pools and potentially head off a dangerous situation if the pool is damaged during an emergency, as was the case in Japan.

Uhle said the commission has not conducted a risk assessment study to determine whether wet pools or dry storage systems are safer but believes the methods are equally safe.

Uhle also acknowledged that NRC rules restrict the commission from requiring the transfer of nuclear waste from wet to dry storage and that cost-benefit analyses must be conducted to ensure the safety benefits match the cost of such projects.

"We would have to show that the additional requirement improves safety or reduces the amount or the potential for dose to be imposed on the public," Uhle said. "The benefit of dose saving has to be enough to warrant the cost, and in our regulatory guidance there is a certain value -- it's $2,000 per person rem averted."