The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will focus on modernization of the existing fleet of nuclear power plants and developing regulations for advanced reactors, the agency’s chairman told one of the nuclear industry’s largest trade groups at its annual conference Monday.
NRC wants to ensure the nation’s current fleet of nuclear plants are outfitted with new technologies like accident-tolerant fuels and digital instrumentation, said agency chair Christopher Hanson Monday at the Nuclear Energy Institute’s (NEI) annual Nuclear Energy Assembly, held virtually this year. The commission will also ensure that aging management and other required programs are in place for existing power plants, Hanson said.
It’s “an incredible time” to be in the NRC, Hanson said. “I fully expect us to be busy.”
The agency will also continue to work on its Part 53 rulemaking for advanced reactors, which Hanson said the commission aims to make “efficient, transparent and clear.” The new regulations will provide licensees some certainty, but also some public assurance of safety and environmental protection, Hanson said. The commission will also work to ensure the new rulemaking incorporates new technologies in its regulations while remaining “usable and accessible” for all interested parties, Hanson said.
The agency has previously signaled that the ball is in industry’s court where advanced reactors are concerned. During a May 18 meeting of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, the chief of the commission’s Material Control and Accounting Branch James Rubenstone said that NRC doesn’t want to “get ahead” of advanced reactor programs that aren’t yet operational.
In what has become a refrain among President Joe Biden’s appointees, Hanson told NEI that nuclear energy plays a key role in the Biden administration’s climate plans. The current administration acknowledges and endorses the part nuclear has to play in a clean energy agenda “at a very high level,” Hanson said.
Indeed, the administration has signaled that it plans to support nuclear energy as it lays out a plan to “decarbonize” the nation’s energy production. The Biden administration’s fiscal year 2022 budget request includes $750 million that would be used as credit to existing nuclear plants. The White House also requested $370 million for the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.
