NRC Withdraws Ruling on Amendment to Areva Cask COC

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission withdrew its direct final ruling issued in April that would have enabled the storage of high burnup spent nuclear fuel in Areva’s Standardized Advanced NUHOMS Horizontal Modular Storage System, according to a posting in the Federal Register yesterday. Areva was seeking an amendment to its certificate of compliance for its storage casks, but the final ruling drew criticism from the public. During the public comment period, a group of 20 environmental activist organizations issued a comment against the ruling focused on the Safety Evaluation Report finding that they claim would enable the casks to be used for transportation of high burnup spent fuel. According to the posting, “Although this amendment does not approve the transportation of high burnup fuel, in this instance the NRC considers this comment to be a significant adverse comment as defined in Section I, Procedural Background, of the direct final rule because the comment raises an issue serious enough to warrant a substantive response to clarify or complete the record,” it said. “Therefore, the NRC is withdrawing the direct final rule.”