A March 28 article in the Craig Press, reprinted on the front page of the Steamboat Pilot & Today, reported on a Craig City Council work session featuring a discussion facilitated by the Northwest Colorado Energy Initiative subgroup of the lobbying/economic development group, AGNC.

The discussion involved the possibility of locating a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods in Moffat County to “bring economic development opportunities to the region.”

Spent nuclear fuel rods are considered by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy to be high-level nuclear waste, which is hazardous “because they produce fatal radiation doses during short periods of direct exposure.”

For example, 10 years after removal from a reactor, the surface dose rate for a typical spent fuel assembly exceeds 10,000 rem/hour – far greater than the fatal whole-body dose for humans of about 500 rem received all at once. If isotopes from these high-level wastes get into groundwater or rivers, they may enter food chains.

Isotopes produced by the fission process include Plutonium 239, which have a half-life of 24,000 years. Currently there is no permanent underground geological repository in the U.S.

Instead, spent nuclear fuel rods are stored “temporarily” under 40-year permits at each of the nuclear reactor sites in the U.S., including the decommissioned Fort St. Vrain in Colorado.  Storage is a two-step process.

First, the SNF rods are placed in a 25- to 30-foot deep pool of water to cool down, usually for five or more years. Then, the still highly radioactive spent fuel rods are transferred to concrete and steel-clad casks above ground on site.

Recently the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Agency developed a “consent-based process” for permitting “Consolidated Interim Storage Facilities” to store spent fuel rods for up to 40 years or until a permanent, deep, 2,000- to 3,000-foot storage facility is built. Such installations would receive the dry storage casks, then surround them with chain-link fencing.

This permitting process was supposed to get consent from the communities in which the Nuclear Regulatory Agency permitted such storage facilities. In actuality, both New Mexico and Texas were told that the Nuclear Regulatory Agency would have private firms build and operate CISFs, even though both states strongly objected.

New Mexico Gov. Luhan Grisham stated in a press release in 2022:

“The Nuclear Regulatory Agency has unilaterally decided to house the nation’s spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico, despite the fact that our state has not one nuclear power plant within its borders. And while the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and Holtec International say that the proposal is ‘temporary,’ a 40-year license with the opportunity for renewal will threaten the health and safety of generations of New Mexicans.”

Both states sued the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. The cases went to local, then circuit courts. All decided in favor of the states. The U.S. Supreme Court heard Nuclear Regulatory Agency vs. Texas on March 6, 2025. A decision is pending.

Given this history and my experience as a local and state elected official, I have little confidence that what the presenter to the Craig City Council mistakenly referred to as a “collaborative process” will benefit Northwest Colorado.

However, there already existing proven, tested renewable technologies like solar or geothermal that could provide the Hayden Station owner, Xcel Energy, with more than the current 446 megawatt hours of power and well-paying jobs and other economic benefits for a “Just Transition Solicitation.”

Renewables are now significantly cheaper to build and operate than nuclear.

Solar development can improve soil health, retain water, nurture native species, produce food, and provide even lower-cost energy to local communities. It can be a boon to family agriculture through “agrivoltaics”.

Utility-scale solar with energy storage, or geothermal, would smooth demands on our grid. With storage, these renewables would provide firm electricity for Xcel Energy’s shareholders and good jobs for our community without the federal government using us as the dumping ground for waste not produced in Colorado and making our roads more hazardous without our consent.