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Local officials in Carlsbad pushed the U.S. Department of Energy to install a nuclear reactor on the property of a nuclear waste repository regarding 30 miles east of the city.
The comments came during a Wednesday public meeting at the Municipal Golf Course with Candice Robertson, senior technical advisor with the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM).
She discussed with the gathered group of city officials and other stakeholders a plan by the office to develop “clean energy” on unused land at sites managed by EM throughout the country to power local communities nearby.
More: Oil & gas industry joins fight once morest nuclear waste site proposed in southeast New Mexico
These included the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, along with the Hanford Site in Washington, Idaho National Laboratory, Nevada National Security and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The agency identified 72,000 acres split among the sites and required sites have at least 2,000 acres be considered for the program, Robertson said.
She also explained the DOE did not set aside any funding for the potential projects and was presently gauging interest from locals and potential investors on if any facilities would be built at all.
More: Feds tout progress in cleaning up nuclear waste at Los Alamos using Carlsbad-area site
No funding dedicated to nuclear waste clean up would be used, Robertson said, and the program will not affect waste disposal schedules.
Interest for small modular reactors (SMRs) was also expressed at a public meeting in Hanford, Washington, Robertson said.
The DOE was taking a “technology neutral” approach, she said, and nuclear power was included in the federal definition of clean energy.
More: Air shaft at nuke repository near Carlsbad hits final depth amid recent safety incidents
“We’re generally taking an all-of-the-above technology approach, but some sites might have limitations,” Robertson said. “Our next step in this process is to have these conversations. We will then invite community partners to the site to have further discussion.”
Project might respond to growing energy needs in Permian Basin
Former DOE scientist and Carlsbad resident Roger Nelson argued wind and solar were unlikely to provide the power load needed in the region, and that the best use of the land for energy would be a small modular reactor (SMR).
“Who’s going to come in and build a billion-dollar solar facility for WIPP? I just don’t see it. You’ve got to get the utilities in to justify this sort of investment,” he said. “If there’s any potential for WIPP to generate clean energy, it’s in small nuclear reactors. Stick to the nuclear connection.”
David Lackey, community and economic development manager at Xcel Energy said any development would need to tie into the utility’s grid as a leading power provider for the region.
Xcel recently said it planned to increase its power capacity 5,000 to 10,000 megawatts by 2030, in response to forecast demand increasing in southeast New Mexico and West Texas where oil and gas production was expected to grow throughout the next decade.
More: Nuclear waste disposal permit issued for New Mexico site, WIPP to get bigger in November
Lackey said that while the company recently committed to several renewable energy projects in the region to increase capacity and reduce pollution, the utility was not ruling out further investments that might include the DOE’s potential project at WIPP.
And its plans to raise capacity, he said, was not limited to renewable energy alone.
“We know the demand is here, it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s an opportunity for us to expand further. We’re not closed to that,” he said at the meeting. “We’ll be having discussions in the very near future as this matures. We continue to see interest of this area, growth industries, that are demanding more and more power.”
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Are small modular nuclear reactors feasible for New Mexico?
SMRs are not currently used in the U.S. as the technology was largely still being developed.
More: Here’s how much of Idaho’s nuclear waste was disposed of in southeast New Mexico
The first SMR design was approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in January, but proposals to build the devices to a utility scale were marred by setbacks related to costs and potential environmental impacts.
A project to build one in Utah was canceled Wednesday amid rising costs, according to media reports, without enough subscribers to cover the proposed facility’s expenses.
Concerns also grew for waste generated by the reactors.
More: New Mexico researchers report contamination, nuclear material in oil and gas wastewater
A study published by DOE’s own Argonne National Laboratory said that while SMRs are easier to build than large reactors and might make nuclear power more widely available, they might generate just as much waste albeit a lower generation capacity.
The study did contend that nuclear waste recycling might be used in the future and would significantly reduce the waste being generated.
Senior Nuclear Engineer Take Kyum with Argonne National Laboratory said more research was needed into the waste generation of the SMRs being developed.
More: New Mexico’s nuclear waste operations called into question during public forum in Carlsbad
“We’ve really just begun to study the nuclear waste attributes of SMRs,” Kyum said in the report.
The technology might be developed in New Mexico, following Kairos Power in 2019 chose Albuquerque to host an engineering center to develop advanced reactor technology in the Mesa del Sol community.
Support for the reactor idea was also voiced by Carlsbad Mayor Pro-tem Eddie Rodriguez, Chairman of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance Jack Volpato and New Mexico State Rep. Jim Townsend (R-54), all in attendance at the meeting.
More: New nuclear waste rules stricter for Carlsbad area facility. Will New Mexico enforce?
Townsend said the DOE would struggle to garner support from the oil and gas industry, a major user of electricity in the area, to build a wind or solar facility on the land.
He said nuclear energy was a low-carbon source, but also one that is “dispatchable” and affordable for consumers.
“I hope that you go down the road of the small modular reactor. What we need is dispatchable electrical power,” Townsend said to Robertson following her remarks. “There’s a lot of money in oil and gas right now, certainly enough to continue developing the Permian. You’re going to see a lot of support for a small modular reactor. You’re not going to see a lot of support for a solar array.
“Engineers can build almost anything, but it’s got to be affordable for the consumer.”
Robertson said the DOE would next host an “information day” at the WIPP site to solicit more public feedback for the proposal and likely issue a request for information (RFI) to gauge regional interest.
“The criteria was let’s see who has land available and if there is any interest. We’re not promising anything,” she said of the project. “The criteria was minimal. There’s a lot of challenges to delivering on this. If we fail now, we’ll at least have laid the groundwork.”
Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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