The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has denied a petitioner’s request that the regulator inspect the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant and the Kewaunee Power Station to determine if issues with Belgian nuclear power plants could have implications in the U.S.
Petitioner Michael Mulligan spoke with NRC’s petition review board in May 2015 concerning several thousand cracks that were discovered during testing for Belgium’s Doel 3 and Tihange 2 nuclear reactors. The reactors have been shut down since 2014, and two leading material scientists — Professor Walter Bogaerts, of the University of Leuven in Belgium, and Professor Digby MacDonald, of the University of California, Berkeley — suggested in 2015 that the corrosion may have resulted from normal operation, suggesting a more widespread issue.
Mulligan requested the NRC conduct exigent and immediate full-scale ultrasonic inspections on the reactor pressure vessels at Vermont Yankee and Kewaunee, which are closed plants in Vermont and Wisconsin, respectively. Those same type of tests revealed the cracks at the Belgium plants, according to an NRC notice issued Tuesday. Mulligan also suggested NRC collaborate on the inspections with Belgium’s regulator, the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control, among other suggestions.
NRC Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Director William Dean denied the request, reasoning in part that “the identified facilities have ceased operations, and there is no safety concern at those facilities that justifies enforcement-related action (i.e., to modify, suspend, or revoke the licenses) for the NRC to have reasonable assurance of the adequate protection of public health and safety.”
