The House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday approved legislation that would require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to produce a report on “best practices” for establishing local advisory boards near nuclear power plants undergoing decommissioning.
The language was included in an amendment from Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.). The panel approved the amendment by voice vote and then did the same for the full bill, which focuses on NRC financing. It now goes to the full House for a vote.
If approved by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump, the legislation would give the NRC 18 months to issue a report “identifying best practices with respect to the establishment and operation of a local advisory board to foster communication and information exchange between a licensee planning for and involved in decommissioning activities and members of the community that decommissioning activities may effect.”
Contents of the report would include topics local boards could consider, how their input could assist decision-making for different parts of the decommissioning process, and how they might interact with the NRC and other federal regulatory agencies.
The “Nuclear Utilization of Keynote Energy (NUKE) Act” was introduced in 2017 by Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Mike Doyle (D-Pa.). The lawmakers said at the time the bill is intended to establish greater transparency at the nuclear industry regulator and “provide long-term certainty for nuclear plants.”
Among the measures in the full bill:
- The agency’s yearly budget justification to Congress would have to “expressly identify” costs needed to carry out the NRC’s work during the upcoming fiscal year.
- The annual charge to operating reactor licensees, “to the maximum extent practicable,” would be capped at the level set in the commission’s fee schedule and recovery rule for fiscal 2016.
- Corporate support costs would be curbed as a percentage of the commission’s full budget authority, to: 30 percent in fiscal years 2021 and 2022, 29 percent in 2023 and 2024, and 28 percent after that. In its fiscal 2019 budget proposal, the NRC requested $299.6 million for corporate support, covering operations including acquisitions, human resources, financial management, and training. That amount represents 31 percent of the total budget plan.
Entergy said recently it has shipped 782,000 gallons of contaminated groundwater from its shuttered Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to a disposal facility in Tennessee.
Another shipment was scheduled for Monday, the power company said in a June 28 update to Vermont’s Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel. It declined to confirm this week whether the shipment had occurred.
Groundwater was first detected seeping into the turbine room at the facility in 2015, shortly after the plant’s December 2014 closure. Intrusion topped out at about 3,000 gallons per day, according to Joseph Lynch, Entergy senior government affairs manager for decommissioning. That was down to about 300 gallons per day in late June.
“Entergy has sealed areas of water infiltration in the turbine building, greatly reducing the inflow. Future reduction plans are evaluated and implemented if cost effective,” Lynch told RadWaste Monitor by email.
Entergy hopes to more effectively seal the building, Lynch said, but he acknowledged the turbine building likely will never be fully sealed against water infiltration.
Entergy has spent roughly $6 million dealing with the problem, which covers water handling, storage, loading, and disposal. On-site the water is stored in 20,000-gallon tanks before being transported to the EnergySolutions disposal site in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Shipments generally carry 5,000 gallons of water and occur every one to two weeks, Lynch said.
There is no estimate for future spending on the water, according to Lynch: “Due to the variability of the intrusion rates throughout any year, we do not forecast the quantity of water and therefore the cost.”
Entergy would be relieved of responsibility for managing the water intrusion if it completes the sale of the Vermont Yankee plant to New York City-based NorthStar Group Services for decommissioning. The companies hope to complete the deal by the end of 2018. They must first secure federal and state regulatory approval: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to rule on the site license transfer of the third quarter of this year; the Vermont Public Utility Commission said last week it would issue its own decision following the NRC ruling.
The Department of Energy expects by Sept. 30 to answer questions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding the requested 20-year extension of the license for storage of radioactive waste from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory.
That would meet the deadline set by the NRC in its Jan. 29 request for additional information on the Three Mile Island Unit 2 Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation.
The Energy Department applied in March 2017 to push back the license expiration from March 2019 to March 2039. The NRC asked for more information in fall 2017 and again in January, the latter request covering 22 distinct items within four topics: scoping evaluation, aging management review, aging management programs, and time-limited aging analyses.
Officials with the two agencies met on June 7 to discuss the upcoming DOE response, according to a June 29 memorandum, posted Tuesday on the NRC website, from Kristina Banovac, a project manager in the agency’s Division of Spent Fuel Management, to division Director Michael Layton.
The Energy Department said it would notify the NRC of changes to its timeline for delivering the information, Banovac wrote. If the NRC does not require further information, staff anticipates ruling on the license extension by next March. “The NRC staff noted that because the submittal of the [license renewal application] was timely, the existing license will not expire until a final decision concerning the renewal has been made by the NRC,” according to Banovac.
The Energy Department has committed not to import any more Three Mile Island waste to Idaho or expand the storage pad, which contains 341 canisters of spent nuclear fuel core debris left by the partial meltdown of the Pennsylvania reactor in March 1979.
Decommissioning of the Crystal River nuclear power plant in Florida is expected to cost another $895.9 million (in 2017 dollars), owner Duke Energy said in a new price forecast with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That amount compares to the $1.18 billion (in that-year dollars) estimate Duke submitted to the NRC in 2013, the year the company permanently closed the plant.
The difference is largely due to costs incurred, Duke spokeswoman Heather Danenhower said. The earlier estimate in Duke’s post-shutdown decommissioning activities report for Crystal River covered expenses anticipated to be incurred in coming years. Over the last five years, Duke has moved the plant’s spent fuel from wet to dry storage and shipped off various radioactive waste types to reduce the infrastructure footprint, according to Danenhower.
“[T]he actual cost of CR3’s decommissioning during the first five years is consistent with the 2013 cost estimate. Actual costs have been about 10 percent lower than anticipated,” she said by email.
In July 2015, Duke officially placed the reactor into SAFSTOR – the decommissioning mode in which the facility is largely untouched while radiation levels drop and funding is built up for the active cleanup. Under SAFSTOR, nuclear utilities have up to six decades to complete decommissioning. Duke expects to finish the job in 2074.
The cost breakdown for post-closure management of the site from 2018 is: $784.8 million for license termination, covering the actual decommissioning of the facility; $95.1 million for spent fuel management, until the Energy Department meets its obligation to remove the radioactive material from Crystal River; and $51.9 million for site restoration.
After spending $20.3 million this year, Duke expects annual license-termination costs to largely flatline just shy of $7.4 million through 2037 and then to drop to nearly $4 million per year until 2066. Active cleanup would begin in 2067, with expenses spiking as high as $127.5 million two years later before winding down to just $97,000 for labor in 2074.
“These costs are reflective of security and other programs we are required to maintain as part of license termination activities,” Danenhower stated. “The number decreases starting in 2038 because we assume the Department of Energy will take possession of the used nuclear fuel assemblies at that time. If that occurs, security requirements, including staffing, will be greatly reduced – significantly decreasing costs.”
Montana state officials expect next month to present local stakeholders with an updated set of proposed rules for management of technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material (TENORM) waste.
That would initiate a months-long process of review, including a public comment period, leading to anticipated finalization of the rules in early 2019, according to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
The state agency in August 2017 issued a set of draft rules highlighted by requiring a solid waste management system license for building, expanding, or operating a TENORM waste site. However, following input from the public, DEQ decided by January of this year to revise the proposal.
The revisions encompass “clarifications, modifications, technical input, and additional language,” Emily Ewart, rule specialist and policy coordinator for DEQ’s Waste and Underground Tank Management Bureau, said in a memo at the time.
Additional details were not available this week. “The rules are expected to evolve after the work group meeting so it’s too soon to say how they will specifically differ from the previous rule package,” DEQ spokeswoman Jenifer Garcin said by email.
The working group is expected to meet on Aug. 9 at DEQ headquarters in Helena. Representatives will include government officials and representatives from industry and nongovernmental organizations, Garcin said. They will help refine the rules package before it is released for public comment.
Comment periods generally extend for 30 days, though extensions are possible, Garcin said. The Department of Environmental Quality will then review the comments to determine if additional revisions to the rules are necessary.
“We’re hoping the previous comment period, revisions to the original rule proposal reflecting substantive comment and the pending stakeholder work group to hammer out final details will streamline response to this round of comments and enable us to get to filing the final rule with the Secretary of State’s office in a reasonable and prudent time frame,” Garcin wrote.
The Montana secretary of state will publish the final rule.
TENORM is naturally radioactive material that has come into contact with the environment or has been concentrated as a result of human activities, such as oil and natural gas production. Most TENORM waste disposed of in Montana comes from oil and gas extraction operations next door in North Dakota. The state’s sole operational landfill with a permit for TENORM waste received 82,416 pounds of oil field TENORM containing wastes in 2017.
From The Wires
From KRWG: New Mexico state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D) still seeking information from state government on proposed interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Lea County, N.M.
From the Deseret News: A truck carrying radioactive dirt caught fire Thursday in Utah. There was no release of radiation.
From BWX Technologies: BWXT subsidiary signs medical isotope production cooperation deal with Canadian utility Bruce Power.
