WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday restarted plans to temporarily store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico, even as the nation is at an impasse over a permanent solution.
The ruling does not mean nuclear waste will end up in West Texas. Texas legislators have sent a bill to Gov. Greg Abbott that reiterates the state’s stance that nuclear waste may only be stored at the location where a reactor is operating. And Interim Storage Partners, which applied for a federal license to build a spent nuclear fuel storage site in West Texas, said in a statement that it does not plan to continue developing the project “without the consent of the State of Texas.”
“With the state and nation increasingly acknowledging and exploring the value of nuclear energy generation and other significant uses of nuclear technology, ISP remains hopeful that state and federal leaders will work together to apply proven technical solutions to address the nation’s nuclear fuel management challenges,” the statement said.
Abbott has said Texas would evaluate the reliability and safety of nuclear power to “dramatically expand” nuclear power resources here, where electricity demand is rising. But a spokesperson for Abbott on Wednesday night told the Odessa American that building the West Texas waste site would go against state law.