Archive for the ‘NRC’ Category

By Edward Davis and David C. Blee

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) August 7, 2012 order to defer any final agency action approving the issuance of new reactor licenses or to grant new license renewals for existing operating reactors — in response to a Federal Appeals Court remand of the agency’s existing waste confidence rule — does not represent the draconian “Full-Stop” that the some of the industry’s opponents claim. 

Under the order, the agency will continue with its technical and licensing reviews while holding any final decisions in abeyance until the NRC has developed and completed its work responsive to the Court’s remand.  Accordingly, the Order could impact very few, if any, near-term combined license (COL) applications.  Moreover, under the NRC’s rules for license renewals, no operating plant would be directly affected where a timely renewal license application has already been submitted to NRC. Current spent fuel storage is certainly safe and not in question.  

Notwithstanding, there have been only rare occasions where similar orders have been issued by the NRC. Among them was the Calvert Cliffs Federal Appeals Court Decision in 1971 to require compliance with the newly enacted National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the preparation of environmental impact statements to accompany new reactor licensing and following the Three Mile Accident (TMI).

Moreover, any failure to resolve the waste confidence issue in a timely manner has the potential to delay new-term COLs, cloud license renewals and chill investor confidence in U.S. nuclear energy at a pivotal time. 

As such, the NRC’s Order and the Court’s remand are matters to be taken seriously.  At the same time, they offer a window of opportunity to chart a path-forward to resolve the back-end of the fuel cycle dilemma, which has plagued U.S. nuclear energy since its infancy.  The Reid-Jaczko four-year walk-in-the-wilderness prescription of just-leave-the waste-where-it-is was myopic at best.  Given the stakes involved, a head-in-the-sand approach in light of this new challenge would be equal folly.

For over four decades, the industry has operated under a series of interlocking court and regulatory decisions that have benefited and fostered the continued use and development of nuclear energy in the U.S. Starting in the early 1970s, a number a significant legal actions were taken to force the NRC to make a determination when licensing new plants that the spent fuel and nuclear waste could be disposed of safely and permanently.  In a 1979 Court of Appeals decision, known as Minnesota vs. NRC, it was found that the NRC was not required to find that such disposal capacity actually existed at the time of licensing of a new plant, only that a finding was necessary that NRC had “confidence”  that a permanent repository would eventually be available when needed.

The Court in the Minnesota decision referenced the NRC's 1977 order denying a National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) petition for a "confidence" rulemaking:

"It is neither necessary nor reasonable for the Commission to insist on proof that a means of permanent waste disposal is on hand at the time reactor operation begins, so long as the Commission can be reasonably confident that permanent disposal (as distinguished from continued storage under surveillance) (emphasis added) can be accomplished safely when it is likely to become necessary. Reasonable progress towards the development of permanent disposal facilities is presently being accomplished. Under these circumstances a halt in licensing of nuclear power plants is not required to protect public health and safety."

However, the Minnesota Court case did give rise to what has been enshrined as the Waste Confidence Rule, which the NRC updates from time to time.  The significance of this generic rule is that interveners cannot raise any questions in individual licensing proceedings as to whether the nuclear plant with its accumulation of spent fuel might one day become a de facto repository after its license expired because the Federal Government failed to successfully develop a repository. 

In addition, by virtue of another generic rule, the so-called Uranium Fuel Cycle Rule and its related Table S-3, one that was challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, opponents cannot question the environmental releases assumed from a repository in individual plant environmental impact statements because NRC has assumed a “zero release” assumption as part of these assessments.

Despite these regulatory protections, the NRC under pressure did concede, as it does today, that the NRC will not continue to license reactors if it does not have reasonable confidence that spent fuel and nuclear waste can and will in due course be disposed of safely. And, specifically, this codified policy commitment relates to permanent disposal and not temporary surface storage. 

The linkage between progress towards permanent disposal and continued reactor licensing is at the heart of today’s nuclear waste confidence impasse — one that cannot be resolved through efforts to site temporary storage facilities, notwithstanding how desirable those efforts may be in terms of moving spent fuel from nuclear power plant sites.

When the Obama Administration disbanded and defunded the DOE’s nuclear repository program while seeking to terminate the Yucca Mountain project,  former NRC Chairman Gregory Jazcko pushed through an update of the Waste Confidence Rule based on the flawed premise that despite the Administration's efforts to terminate the only repository program that the nation has had over the past 30 years, the NRC still had "confidence” that somehow, some way a repository would materialize precisely  when needed.  In the meantime, the NRC found that spent fuel  could be stored onsite safely for a total of 120 years — 60 years during operations followed by an additional 60 years after license expiration for the repository to become available.

Two states seeking to block license renewals and anti-nuclear groups who have had a long running feud with NRC over this issue saw an opportunity and pounced on this update and its “predicative” finding of confidence as a bridge too far and sued the NRC over the revised rule. 

As a result of the Federal Appeals Court’s June 8th remand, the NRC must now go back and develop an environmental assessment of the implications of not having a repository.  Based on oral arguments, Petitioners are seeking an expansive, multi-century analysis of the uncertainties, costs and effects of a repository and its potential failure and related consequences as well as the onsite effects of indefinitely storing spent fuel at reactor sites across the country. Such an assessment is analogous to the Environmental Protection Agency’s one-million-year repository dose standard for Yucca Mountain that took nearly a decade to address. 

Ironically, the DOE in its 2002 Yucca Mountain EIS submitted to the NRC in connection with its license application did in fact make such an assessment of the potential environmental effects in its “No Action” Alternative and found that potential consequences of not having a repository could be quite significant.

This confluence is manifest destiny for the anti-nuclear community, which now believes it has finally opened up a Pandora’s Box that will force the NRC’s hand not to license new nuclear plants without a repository or even with just the reasonable prospect of one.

In writing the Court’s unanimous opinion in the Waste Confidence case, Chief Judge David B. Sentelle summed-up the paradox:

“The Commission apparently has no long-term plan other than hoping for a geologic repository. If the government continues to fail in its quest to establish one, then SNF will seemingly be stored on site at nuclear plants on a permanent basis. The Commission can and must assess the potential environmental effects of such failure.”

He also highlighted this dilemma during oral argument in responding to a suggestion by an NRC lawyer that the Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) recommendations were a basis of renewed confidence that there would be a repository sometime in the not too distant future:

“You just related the history of the law, the Congressional resolutions had required the construction of the Yucca Mountain site, and then you tell me that we should reason from the fact that the President killed the Yucca Mountain site and put in some other Commission that therefore there’s going to be a solution. If anything it sounds like this is one more time that the frustration of the Petitioners reflected reality. “

In short, without a repository, there can be no nuclear energy resurgence. What is required now is a concerted action not only by the NRC but also the Administration and the Congress to address the root cause of the waste confidence impasse and put the U.S. nuclear waste program back on track.  

A good start would be for the NRC to restart the Yucca licensing process and not wait for a Court mandamus order to do so. Such action is supported by the recent vote 326 members of the House of Representatives to provide additional funding for the Yucca licensing process. In addition, the DOE should re-standup the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management in order to refocus efforts and develop a repository restart plan. Congress should appropriate the necessary funding to put the program back on track.

Progress on these fronts and on Yucca Mountain provides confidence that a repository can and will be available.  It also provides a demonstration that there is a political will to resolve the siting issues and to carry out the law that Congress established

Mr. Davis is President of the Pegasus Group and a former President of the American Nuclear Energy Council. Mr. Blee is a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy and Executive Director of the U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council. 

March 22, 2011
Nuclear Townhall

Chairman Gregory Jaczko has announced that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct a 90-day study on the significance of Fukushima for American reactors with updates at 30 and 60 days.


The announcement came yesterday as top NRC officials said the situation in Japan did not warrant any immediate changes at American nuclear plants. “Every single day, we assess whether or not there is some additional regulatory action that needs to be taken immediately in order to address the information we have to date,” R. William Borchardt, executive director for operations, told the full commission in a televised hearing. Borchardt said that every day NRC inspectors double-check emergency equipment at each reactor “to make sure they haven’t fallen into disuse because they haven’t been used.”



Attention has already focused around the ventilation pipes, which have been hardened in U.S. reactors but may not have been similarly upgraded in Japan. If the pipes at Fukushima remain as simple ductwork, they could have been overpressurized when workers vented the steam, which led to several hydrogen explosions.



Dramatizing how serious the NRC’s responsibilities will be, another division of the agency issued a 20-year license renewal for Vermont Yankee even as the commission was holding hearings. Vermont Yankee is a twin of several of the Fukushima reactors. Commissioners said there would be further review of the relicensing as details of the Japanese accident come to light.


Overall, the commissioners expressed confidence in their ability to continue regulating nuclear development.  “Some may characterize that our faith in this technology is shaken,” said Commissioner Kristine L. Svinicki. “But nuclear safety is not and cannot be a matter of faith. It must be a matter of fact.”

Read more about it at the New York Times
 

March 11, 2011
Nuclear Townhall
 

Things are starting to move at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On top of renewing Vermont Yankee’s license, the NRC has awarded design approval to GE Hitachi’s ESBWR, giving a boost to the consortium’s international efforts.

“The FSER [final safety evaluation report] and FDA [final design approval] mark a crucial step forward for the ESBWR’s global commercial prospects,” said Caroline Reda, president and CEO of GEH. “We appreciate the diligence of the NRC during the review process, which enables the ESBWR to remain on track to receive the NRC’s final design certification by this fall.”

Although Michigan’s DTE has chosen the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) for its proposed Fermi Unit 3 near Detroit, the first construction will probably be abroad. India is experiencing a nuclear renaissance and has designed a site for multiple ESBWRs. The GE Hitachi consortium is also making inroads in Poland. Last month it signed a memorandum of understanding with POLATOM, the research institute that advises the Polish government on nuclear issues.

Thirty years ago, GE and Westinghouse dominated the reactor industry. GE’s boiling water reactor constituting one-third of America’s 100 reactor fleet while Westinghouse’s pressurized water reactor most of the other two-thirds. GE has not built a BWR since the ill-fated Shoreham plant, which never opened. Former GE CEO Jack Welsh was openly contemptuous of nuclear and current CEO Jeff Immelt notes that “no GE CEO has ever made money in nuclear.”  Westinghouse’s fortunes revived after it was bought by Toshiba in 2006, however, and GE followed by partnering with Hitachi in 2007.

The ESBWR is a “Gen III” reactor, designed to reduce costs and achieve greater safety by simplifying the design and using natural convection in cooling. The approval puts GE Hitachi one step ahead of Westinghouse, which is still awaiting approval of its Gen III design, the AP1000

Read more about it at Business Wire

March 11, 2011
Nuclear Townhall

Five years after the initial application, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has voted to conclude the legal proceedings on Vermont Yankee’s application for a license renewal, which will allow the reactor to operate through 2032.

“This is the final step in the NRC’s detailed technical and legal process of examining whether it’s appropriate to issue a renewed license,” said NRC Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko in a press release. “Since there are other approval processes outside the NRC, we’ll continue to ensure Vermont Yankee is meeting the appropriate public health and safety standards regardless of the reactor’s ultimate status.”  The current operating license, issued in 1972, is due to expire a year from now.

The processes “outside the NRC,” of course, are the state proceedings, in which the Vermont Legislature and newly elected Governor Peter Shumlin have vowed to close the reactor when its current license expired this year. Although NRC jurisdiction trumps state regulation, Vermont has a unique arrangement with Entergy that allows it to veto the license renewal. The deal was struck when Entergy bought Vermont Yankee in 2002.

The decision is sure to set off renewed efforts to have the state legislature vote to close down the facility. After tritium leaks were found in the reactor last year, the Vermont State Senate voted 26-4 to instruct the Vermont Public Services Board to close down the reactor but the measure was never approved in the State Assembly. Governor Shumlin, who led the effort in the Senate, was elected last year mainly on the basis of his campaign against the reactor.

Since then, however, many people are having second thoughts. The move would cost the state two-third of its electric power and would require the purchase of much more expensive sources, probably hydroelectric power from the James Bay,  in northern Canada requiring new power lines.  IBM, the state’s largest employer, has said it will close its giant chip manufacturing plant in Essex Junction if it is forced to pay higher costs for electricity. On Thursday, however, Shumlin said he will continue the effort to close the plant.

Vermont Yankee has suffered its own difficulties in recent years. In 2007 a cooling tower collapsed and 2009 produced the tritium leaks that kicked off the current controversy. Although it took several months to pinpoint the source of the leaks, they never reached the Environmental Protection Agency’s “level of concern” for tritium.

Plans to offer “green” alternatives have quickly run into roadblocks of scale and their own environmental impacts whenever they have materialized. Replacing only a small portion of Vermont Yankee’s 660 megawatts would require erecting windmills across large portions of the state. When a local entrepreneur proposed building a 30-MW wood-chip-burning plant in neighboring Massachusetts, environmental groups immediately overwhelmed it with objections. It would take 20 such plants to replace Vermont Yankee.

Residents of Vernon, where the plant is located, still remain almost unanimous in their support for relicensing the plant.

Read more about it the NRC
 

February 19, 2011

Yucca Mountain Safety Evaluation Report – Appendix A

Yucca Mountain Safety Evaluation Report – Volume 2

Yucca Mountain Safety Evaluation Report – Volume 3

February 16, 2011
Nuclear Townhall

In a maneuver that will could directly complicate licensing for plant extensions and ripple into new plant siting, three northeast state attorney generals have sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission contesting the recent waste confidence ruling that will allow utilities to store spent fuel for sixty years on-site.



"Whether you’re for or against re-licensing Indian Point, we can all agree on one thing,” New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman told the Associated Press. “Before dumping radioactive waste at the site for 60 years after it’s closed, our communities deserve a thorough review of the safety, public health, and environmental risks such a move would present.

"

The New York State Attorney General’s office is already on the record as opposed to relicensing Indian Point – as is Governor Andrew Cuomo and the entire New York political establishment.  The waste confidence lawsuit is another step in a multi-pronged effort to close the plant, which supplies New York City with one-quarter of its electricity.



Connecticut has not been so overtly anti-nuclear, although former Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (now U.S. Senator) did propose a windfall profits tax on reactors a few years ago because he said they were profiting unfairly from the run-up in oil prices. Millstone Units 2 and 3 have already had their licenses extended through 2035 and 2045 respectively.



Vermont, of course, is intent on closing Vermont Yankee after Governor Peter Shumlin won election in large part by opposing it. Vermont is already dealing with initial consequences, however, as IBM, the state’s largest employer, has announced it will leave without Vermont Yankee’s electricity.



All this might serve as a cautionary harbinger of things to come, except that litigation-minded attorneys in the state offices seem indifferent to the consequences. When asked how the state planned to replace Indian’s Point’s 2000 megawatts, one attorney in the New York office responded, “That’s not our problem.”

Read more about it at the Hanford News
 

January 28, 2011
Nuclear Townhall
From the Editors

Perhaps in keeping with the popular misconception that living near a nuclear reactor is the equivalent of living in the neighborhood with a mushroom cloud, the Augusta Chronicle is reporting that the Vogtle Plant in Georgia has opened an “information center” with emphasis on how to escape the area if something goes wrong at the new reactors.
 


“The two-building complex adjacent to Georgia Power Co.’s offices in Waynesboro would serve as a media and information center if a serious accident or emergency were to occur at the power plant, situated 20 miles away on the banks of the Savannah River,” the newspaper reports.   There was no mention of reduced air pollution or other benefits the new plants might bring.



The new $2 million headquarters in Waynesboro is designed to be a kind of emergency command center. “[T]he center includes a newsroom with desks and other facilities for reporters; and offices for local emergency officials, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other agencies that would be involved in such an emergency,” says the Chronicle.


The article emphasizes that Vogtle officials have already held annual emergency drills for the last two decades preparing for the hypothetical disaster scenario. "They’ve done it all," Ken Davis, public information director of the Georgia Emergency Management Association told the Chronicle. "Worst-case, unimaginable scenarios are their specialty."



All this is undoubtedly necessary to reassure the public and meet some federal requirements imposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other agencies. But it would be good to note that anti-nuclear activists also use such elaborate precautionary measures as proof positive that nuclear is unacceptably dangerous. At a recent nuclear seminar at the New York Academy of Sciences, one anti-nuclear protestor was carrying forth about Three Mile Island when another participant asked, “How many people were injured at Three Mile Island?”  “That’s not important,” the protestor responded. “They had to be evacuated!”

Read more about it at the Augusta Chronicle
 
 

Nuclear Townhall
January 28, 2011
 
 
While it hasn’t had much success in issuing licenses for new reactors, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has managed to produce a new manifesto on safety culture that probably won’t be read by anyone but will serve as a legal benchmark for anti-nuclear groups trying to prove that reactors aren’t being operated properly.  
 
The 53-page document, “Proposed Final Safety Culture Policy Statement,” issued this week, was written in response to a 2008 Staff Requirements Memorandum titled, “A Commission Policy Statement on Safety Culture.” The intent, according to this report in The Day, of New London, Connecticut, is to “minimize human error and managerial problems at reactors across the country.”
 
The document is not “an enforceable regulation, but rather a guide to “expectations" about how reactor employees should conduct themselves to enhance safety and security, NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko told The Day. Read the full report here.
 
The publication drew immediate criticism from David Lochbaum, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who said the requirements should be mandatory. "Bottom line, the NRC should be an enforcer of regulations that ensure safety, not an encourager of unreliable traits that might lead to acceptable safety levels,” he told The Day. Lochbaum cited a shutdown of the Millstone reactor in Connecticut in the 1990s as a reason for his concern.
 
Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the NRC, said that regulatory procedures can and do lead to heightened oversight of reactor performance without being mandatory. He cited a recent occurrence at Palo Verde as an example. "If inspectors see a pattern of behavior that doesn’t link up with a positive safety culture, we bring that to a plant’s attention, and that can affect a plant’s overall standing," he told The Day.
 
The report must receive the approval of the full Nuclear Regulatory Commission before being officially published in the Federal Register.

Read more about it at the Day
 

Nuclear Townhall
January 28, 2011

The first indication that the 112th Congress will give a high priority to nuclear energy has come from the new Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, who knocked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a statement for taking five years to decide on license renewals.

"Today marks an unfortunate milestone for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the timeline for the reactor renewal process has now doubled without explanation,” said the chairman. He noted that the renewal applications for the Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee reactors “eclips[ed] 60 months with no end in sight. “Gone are the days of reasonable expectations for a stable and predictable regulatory process," continued Upton. "This uncertainty and lack of transparency in the process is needlessly putting plants and thousands of jobs at risk.” 

According to the NRC’s own website, “License renewal is expected to take about 30 months, including the time to conduct an adjudicatory hearing, if necessary, or 22 months without a hearing.”

Both Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee are hot-button issues and any decision will be met with huge opposition. A renewal is likely to end up quickly in court.

But the real question said one industry source is "if license renewals seem a problem, what about new licenses?” 

"Upton is hitting the right buttons, however,  Nuclear energy will never resurge in the U.S. until the NRC licensing process become more accountable and transparently predictable."

Read more about it at the Energy and Commerce website