Nuke plant applies for license to operate 20 more years

LIMERICK — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Thursday that the application to extend for 20 years the operating license for Exelon Nuclear's Limerick Generating Station is available for public review.

The announcement comes just days after The Mercury published an Associated Press series on nuclear power plants which reported that in the 1960s and 1970s "industry and regulators stated unequivocally that reactors were designed only to operate for 40 years."

Exelon submitted the renewal application on June 22 for both its reactors, which are boiling water reactors.