International Conference on the Management of Spent Fuel from Nuclear Power Reactors 2019: Learning from the Past, Enabling the Future

Lessons Learned from the U.S. National Strategy - a Personal Perspective

24 Jun 2019, 17:10

20m

Oral Track 1: National Strategies for Spent Fuel Management Session 1.3

Speaker

Mr Peter Lyons

Description

Thirty years of watching attempts at implementation of a U.S. national strategy for high level waste management embodied in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and its Amendments (of 1982 and 1987) from many vantage points have led to strong personal views on what has gone wrong with U.S. strategies. Instead of a repository open in 1998, the U.S. is still probably at least two decades away from opening a repository. My vantage points include management of the Los Alamos National Laboratory research programs for Yucca Mountain, years on the staff of the U.S. Senate, Commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Assistant Secretary responsible for implementation of these strategies. In the talk, the stark differences between the path followed so far by the U.S. and the path recommended by the U.S. President's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future will be discussed.

Presentation materials

IAEA June 2019 paper.docx

Peer reviewing

Paper

Accepted on 27 May 2019 by Amparo Gonzalez-Espartero

Paper files:

• IAEA_June_2019_paper.docx