The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it will raise the amount of third-party insurance operators of nuclear reactors must carry by $50 million a year.
Reactor operators now must carry $500 million for each licensed reactor, up from $4450 million. The change will be effective on Jan. 1, according to an Oct. 19 Federal Register Notice.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission appointed 11 of its employees to a senior executive service performance review board, according to a Federal Register notice published this week.
The board is responsible for “making recommendations on performance appraisal ratings and performance awards for NRC Senior Executives and Senior Level Ststem employees,” the commission wrote in the notice.
An account on the blogging website Medium this week spread disinformation about workers who recently were accidentally contaminated with radioactive waste water at the shuttered Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, the reactors of which melted down in 2011.
The author of the piece, identified as “Arianna Grande,” a misspelling of the famous pop musician’s name, said the accidental discharge “destroyed two or three specialists on the spot” and caused “silly desolation.” The story had garnered more than one thousand likes on Medium as of Friday. Fukushima operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. disclosed the accident last week, the Associated Press reported. The two people doused with radioactive water were wearing protective gear and, while hospitalized, were not reported to have suffered any internal contamination.
The Illinois legislature is back in session and could move to override Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker’s (D) August veto of a bill that would have lifted the state’s moratorium on construction of new nuclear reactors.
On Oct. 24, Illinois Sen. Sue Rezin (R), who sponsored SB0076, filed a motion to override Pritzker’s veto. The state legislature reconvened Oct. 24, met for three days on Oct. 24-26 and was next scheduled to meet for three days on Nov. 7-9.
Constellation, Baltimore, completed its acquisition of NRG Energy’s 44% stake in the South Texas Project Generating Station outside of Bay City, Texas, with its two reactors.
The company announced its plan to buy out NRG Energy in June. Constellation is now one of three partners in the South Texas Project Nuclear Operation Company’s ownership group, according to a company press release.
Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission health physicist James Wigginton, 77, of Rockville, Md., died Oct. 20 of complications from dementia.
Wiggins, who retired from the NRC in 2005, had long struggled with the disease, according to an obituary posted online this week.
