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20 July 2006 -- The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced yesterday that it will submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, no later than June 30, 2008. The Department also announced that if requested legislative changes are enacted, the repository will be able to accept spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste starting in early 2017. DOE celebrated the announcement as another step in moving the Yucca Mountain Project forward as quickly as possible.
"I am confident that we will prepare and submit a defensible and credible license application that accurately reflects a design for the Yucca Mountain repository which meets or exceeds the safety criteria specified by the NRC no later than Monday, June 30, 2008," said Edward "Ward" Sproat, Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, in testimony before the House Energy & Commerce Committee's Energy & Air Quality subcommittee.
Sproat announced that independent, external assessments will be conducted on the draft license application, several key engineering processes, and the quality assurance programs at DOE, the primary Yucca Mountain contractor, and several national laboratories. Requests for proposals will be issued within the next few weeks seeking qualified experts to conduct these assessments.
"These reviews will tell us the gaps that currently exist between where the program stands right now and where it needs to be when we submit the application. Safety, quality and schedule discipline are not mutually exclusive; in fact, we will need all three of these elements to meet these licensing expectations," Sproat said.
Sproat emphasized that submitting a license application by June 30, 2008, is his first priority. He said before an application is submitted the following conditions will be met to his satisfaction:
- design of license meets the licensing requirements;
- application accurately reflects the design;
- data which is used to justify the design is accurate and generated in compliance with quality assurance requirements;
- application adequately addresses all of the requirements of NUREG 1804 (NRC's Yucca Mountain Review Plan); and writers of the application have attested to the accuracy and completeness of their sections.
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