March 17, 2014

NRC AGREES TO TEMPORARY FREEZE ON NUKE PLANT LICENSE RENEWALS

By ExchangeMonitor

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday announced it would stop finalizing license renewal applications for nuclear reactors until its Waste Confidence Decision on nuclear waste stored at power plant sites is revised. Though the NRC’s commissioners voted in 2010 to update Waste Confidence, asserting surety that storing spent nuclear fuel at nuclear power plants was safe for up to 60 years, in June the U.S. Court of Appeals found the agency’s reasoning “deficient,” and vacated that decision. More than 20 organizations petitioned the NRC to stop awarding new licenses to nuclear power plants and to stop issuing license renewals while the Waste Confidence Decision is not yet final. “We shall not issue licenses dependent upon the Waste Confidence Decision or the Temporary Storage Rule until the court’s remand is appropriately addressed,” the NRC commissioners wrote in an order released yesterday. “This determination extends just to final license issuance; all licensing reviews and proceedings should continue to move forward.”

The NRC also wrote: “Because of the recent court ruling striking down our current waste confidence provisions, we are now considering all available options for resolving the waste confidence issue, which could include generic or site-specific NRC actions, or some combination of both. We have not yet determined a course of action.” NRC spokesman David McIntyre told RW Monitor, “No timeline is set for Commission decision, but it is a high priority.” The D.C. Circuit court found that doubling the time limit—from 30 years of safe storage onsite to 60 years—constituted a major federal action, and when NRC did so without conducting an environmental impact statement, it “failed to properly examine future dangers and key consequences.” The lawsuit was brought by the states of New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut and the Prairie Island Indian Community in February 2011, charging that the NRC failed to conduct necessary tests before it determined that no significant safety or environmental impacts will result from the change.

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