The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 9 said it has begun the technical review of the Energy Department’s request for a 20-year license extension for storage in Idaho of debris from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
The Energy Department submitted the request by letter on March 6, after which the NRC carried out an acceptance review of the application. The regulator informed DOE’s Idaho Operations Office on May 5 that “the NRC has determined that the renewal application contains sufficient information for the NRC to begin its technical review and the application is acceptable for docketing,” according to a Federal Register notice posted last week.
The license covers the Three Mile Island Unit 2 Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory. It is currently due to expire on March 19, 2019; renewal would extend the end date to March 19, 2039.
Unit 2 of the Middletown, Pa., nuclear power plant partially melted down in March 1979. Waste from the site, including debris from the reactor core, semi-intact fuel assemblies, and rubble debris, was shipped to Idaho from 1986 to 1990, and placed in the laboratory’s ISFSI from 1990 to 2001. The maximum amount to be stored is 82,985.9 kilograms of uranium from the unit’s fuel assemblies, contained in about 139,293 kilograms of material extracted from the reactor vessel.
The existing license allows the Idaho site to receive, possess, transfer, and store radioactive material from the Unit 2 reactor core. No additional radioactive material would be added to the ISFSI if the license is extended, the Idaho Operations Office said in a March 9 memo to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. The license renewal would instead allow DOE to sustain storage of the debris, then ultimately ship the material off-site and decommission the storage pad, DOE said.
The NRC technical review began on April 26, and the regulator expects to make a ruling by next May, spokesman David McIntyre said Tuesday.
“The NRC will approve the license renewal application if it determines that the application meets the standards and requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), and the NRC’s regulations. These findings will be documented in a safety evaluation report,” according to the Federal Register notice.
NRC staff will also determine whether an environmental impact statement is necessary for the license extension application.
Interested parties have until Aug. 8 to request a hearing or petition to intervene in the matter, at www.regulations.gov, Docket ID NRC–2017–0136.
In a 1995 deal with the state, the Energy Department agreed to remove all spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste from the Idaho National Laboratory by 2035. However, it still lacks a permanent storage site for the material – though the Trump administration has focused on licensing the controversial deep geologic repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
“DOE remains committed to meeting its obligations to the state of Idaho,” according to the DOE memo to the state DEQ.
Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden has battled with DOE over issues of nuclear waste, refusing to allow shipments of spent fuel into the state until a waste treatment unit at the Idaho National Laboratory is operational. Wasden’s office declined to comment on the license extension request this week: “The Settlement Agreement speaks for itself,” spokeswoman Kriss Bivens Cloyd said by email.
Unit 1 at Three Mile Island remains operational, but operator Exelon said last month it anticipates shutting down the plant by Sept 30, 2019. However, Exelon CEO Chris Crane suggested the facility could remain open if Pennsylvania institutes zero-emissions credits for power plants like those enacted recently by New York and Illinois.
