NRC halts spent fuel pool rulemaking

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recently discontinued its rulemaking work on spent fuel pools and is denying a petition for rulemaking.

The discontinuation of the “Long-Term and Unattended Water Makeup Spent Fuel Pools” rulemaking activity was published in the Federal Register on May 7. The NRC said if it pursues similar rulemaking activities in the future, then it will inform the public at that time.

Petitioner Thomas Popik on behalf of the Foundation of Resilient Societies requested that NRC amend its regulations to require nuclear plant licensees to ensure that their spent fuel pools can continue to cool and maintain water levels during potential prolonged power outages.

The NRC said its final rule, “Mitigation of Beyond-Design-Basis Events” in 2019 resolved part of the petition.The rule requires licensees to have plans to use offsite resources to support restoring or sustaining cooling, containment and spent fuel pool capabilities during an extended outage.

Popik raised other concerns of having emergency systems in place that can operate without human intervention for two years and claiming that the NRC regulations did not require nuclear plant licensees to undertake mitigating efforts for extended grid outages caused by extreme solar storms.

The NRC said the other concerns raised by the petitioner have been addressed by other industry and government actions.