From NEI: The rest of the story on NRC's order this week on final nuclear plant licensing actions

From NEI: The rest of the story on NRC's order this week on final nuclear plant licensing actions

 

Dear Journalist:

Two developments were predictable once a federal appellate court ruled in June that it was vacating and remanding the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s “waste confidence” rule. The rule provided a generic determination of the environmental impacts of storage of used fuel at, or away from, reactor sites after expiration of reactor licenses:

1) The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would have to act to comply with the court’s ruling.

2) Opponents of nuclear energy would be fairly unrestrained in spinning the impact of Development No. 1.
 

Both of those eventualities came to pass this week. This note is sent to remind you that the real near-term impact of the NRC’s initial response to the court ruling (i.e., halting final licensing actions that are “dependent upon the waste confidence decision or temporary storage rule”) is far more limited than nuclear energy opponents have suggested. It is not, as one group touted, a “full stop” for licensing activities. Here’s why:

1) While it’s not yet known precisely how or when the NRC will address the court’s ruling on environmental impacts, pending applications for 20 new nuclear energy facilities are for projects where construction is unlikely to begin before the end of the decade, when electricity demand increases dictate.

2) The NRC’s regulation on timely renewal assures that nuclear energy facilities seeking 20-year extensions of their current operating licenses can continue to operate past the date of original license expiration until the agency has ruled on the application. Already, 73 of the nation’s 104 reactors have received license extensions over the past decade, and applications for an additional 13 reactors already are pending before the NRC. That leaves 18 reactors for which license renewal applications have yet to be filed (a reactor must operate for 20 years before an application can be filed), and only about a half-dozen of those are expected to have entered the NRC’s multi-year license renewal process by this time next year. Therefore, for plants that have requested or will in the future request license renewal in conformance with the agency’s timely renewal regulation, this ruling will not impede continued plant operation.

3) Nuclear plant expansions under way at the Vogtle (Georgia) and V.C. Summer (South Carolina) facilities will not be affected. Construction and operating licenses already have been issued for the four reactors being built at those sites; once built, their operation will hinge upon verification that plant structures and components have been built as designed and function as stipulated. No additional licensing action is required.

4) The NRC reasonably permitted licensing reviews and adjudications to proceed while it reconsiders the waste confidence rule, providing applicants with certainty on that point. And despite all the crowing of success by the opponents of nuclear energy, the agency did not provide an opportunity to litigate these issues in individual licensing proceedings at this point, because it directed licensing boards to hold any related contentions in abeyance.
 

In a nutshell, the impact, if any, of the NRC’s order halting final licensing decisions will depend on how quickly the NRC satisfies the court’s requirements with regard to the National Environmental Policy Act.
If you have questions, please do contact me or my colleagues in NEI’s media relations department at 202-739-8000.
Sincerely,
Steve Kerekes
Senior Director, Media Relations
Nuclear Energy Institute
Washington, DC
o: 202.739.8073
c: 202.439.8577
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