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Holtec abandons nuclear waste project in New Mexico

Holtec, a private nuclear power company, announced this week that it was abandoning a plan to store radioactive waste in New Mexico despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June which gave some hope for projects aiming at storing the material. The Supreme Court threw away a legal challenge in June by Texas, New Mexico, and some oil companies against the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing of nuclear storage projects in the drilling country. Some believed that this opened the door to temporary storage for these states.

New Mexico lawmakers and the Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham are opposed to storing nuclear waste on the site, even temporarily. They fear that without a permanent U.S. facility for nuclear waste, it will become a permanent solution.

Holtec announced in a Wednesday statement that it is leaving the HISTORE project in the Permian basin, near the oil hub Carlsbad. The statement said that the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance and Holtec had mutually agreed to cancel the agreement due to the unsustainable path for used fuel storage. This was reported first by Axios.

It's been obvious for years that New Mexicans are opposed to spent fuel storage and disposition in the state. "We're happy that Holtec finally acknowledged that reality," Don Hancock, director at the Southwest Research and Information Center of Albuquerque for the nuclear waste safety programs.

Holtec's Pat O'Brien, a spokesperson for the company, said that the company hoped to work with states that were willing to store the waste following outreach efforts by the U.S. Department of Energy which began during former President Joe Biden's Administration.

O'Brien stated that Holtec believes communities in 15 to 20 different states are interested in hosting a potential storage facility.

The danger to human health makes it necessary to store nuclear waste for a long time. Nuclear power plants, both active and closed, store the waste.

After state legislators raised objections, the former Obama administration halted funding in 2010. (Reporting and editing by Paul Simao; Timothy Gardner)

(source: Reuters)