The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is denying a petition from a retired Department of Energy nuclear physicist calling for the agency to mandate augmented monitoring of reactor spent fuel pools and reactor coolant and fuel.
Alexander DeVolpi, who worked at the Argonne National Laboratory for more than 40 years to 1999, “requested that the NRC amend its regulations to require ‘installation of ex-vessel instrumentation for uninterruptible monitoring of coolant and fuel in reactors and spent-fuel pools,'” according to the NRC notice scheduled to be posted Tuesday in the Federal Register.
The petition, submitted in 2015, was a response to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, in which three of the plant’s reactors melted down after an earthquake and tsunami struck the nation. The incident forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents from the surrounding area.
In his filing, DeVolpi noted a 2014 National Research Council report on lessons learned from the Fukushima incident, in which one of the recommendations was increased [a]ttention to availability, reliability, redundancy, and diversity of plant systems and equipment is specifically needed for . . . Instrumentation for monitoring critical thermodynamic parameters in reactors, containments, and spent fuel pools.”
However, the NRC said that it has already taken corresponding measures in response to the Fukushima disaster. “The NRC determined that there is no sufficient technical or regulatory basis to amend the NRC’s regulations as requested by the petitioner,” according to the Federal Register notice.
The NRC has spent roughly $50 million on its Fukushima Lessons Learned program, including for equipment and staffing support over several years. The initiative has included the mandatory deployment of standard, portable cooling gear at U.S. nuclear reactors.
