U.S.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recorded a net gain of $5,230 to the Nuclear Waste Fund tied to expenses for licensing activities on the suspended Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, according to an Oct. 26 report to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and other lawmakers.
NRC spokesman Dave McIntyre said the net gain resulted from accounting adjustments, concerning September 2015 salary and benefit costs that should not have been charged to the NWF. Those estimated expenses were subsequently adjusted to actual costs at the end of fiscal 2016 on Sept. 30. The report was made public Wednesday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in August 2013 ordered the agency to resume its review of the Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain licensing application, which was stalled at DOE’s request following the Obama administration’s 2011 decision to cancel the project.
For September, the NRC charged $15,630 for loading of licensing support network documents into the agency’s ADAMS online public document library, and $4,091 for other support costs chargeable to NWF funds. However, the NRC was refunded $24,951 for expenses that should not have been charged for developing Yucca’s environmental impact statement supplement, which was published in May, resulting in a net gain of $5,230.
Since the 2013 court order, the NRC through September had spent $12.1 million of NWF funds on Yucca Mountain licensing, with $8.4 million used for the completion of the site safety evaluation report and $1.54 million for the supplement to the Yucca Mountain environmental impact statement.
The Nuclear Waste Fund had $13.5 million in unexpended funds at the time of the court decision, and $1.46 million remained as of Sept. 30, according to the report, which listed total unobligated funding at $1.35 million.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to meet Nov. 15 with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to discuss a low to moderate safety issue identified earlier this year, concerning an emergency cooling system, at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California.
Located about 12 miles southwest of San Luis Obispo, Diablo Canyon is the last operating nuclear plant in the state and is scheduled to close by 2025. The NRC and PG&E representatives will discuss a preliminary finding regarding the company’s failure to adequately maintain the emergency core cooling system at the plant, according to an NRC announcement on Oct. 28.
The regulator said one of two emergency core cooling systems in Diablo Canyon’s Unit 2 was inoperable for an extended period of time due to a maintenance issue, in which workers incorrectly set a mechanical switch on one of the system’s valves. An emergency core cooling system provides water to the reactor when it loses coolant.
The problem was identified in May and could date as far back as October 2014, the NRC said.
“The licensee has corrected the condition and changes have been made to maintenance procedures to prevent recurrence,” the release says.
Scheduled for 12:30 p.m., the meeting will be held at NRC’s Region IV office, 1600 E. Lamar Blvd., Arlington, Texas.
INTERNATIONAL
Approval of Switzerland’s nuclear power phase-out initiative later this month will mean a $2.56 billion loss for Alpiq, the Swiss utility said in a statement Monday.
The Swiss government moved to phase out nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 reactor meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, drawing up the Energy Strategy 2050. The initiative calls for the gradual closure of Switzerland’s four nuclear plants, without any mandatory shutdown dates.
Switzerland’s Green Party has proposed a more extreme drawdown, calling for a 45-year operating limit for existing plants. Swiss citizens will vote on that plan on Nov. 27. If approved, the country’s Mühleberg and Beznau plants would close by 2017, while the Gösgen and Leibstadt facilities would shut down in 2024 and 2029, respectively. Alpiq has a 40 percent interest in Gösgen, which was commissioned in 1979, and 32.4 percent interest in Leibstadt, which was commissioned in 1984.
The Swiss utility contended that rejection of the Green Party’s proposal is also not optimal, as the status quo would continue, in which nuclear power production costs exceed market prices and nuclear plants cannot operate competitively. Still, Alpiq argued that continued long-term operation of the country’s nuclear plants is the “least economically damaging variant” for the company.
“A premature shut-down means that revenues of long-term continuing operation will be lost, while most of the total costs until decommissioning are fixed and will be incurred regardless of the useful life,” the statement said. “Investments that have already been made or which are still needed could not be amortised over the remaining useful life and payments into the fund for the financing of the shut-down and disposal will increase considerably due to the shorter useful life.”
United Kingdom nuclear company Magnox Ltd. has begun the final portion of decommissioning the former Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor on the Winfrith site in Dorset, the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced Friday.
Crews are working to isolate the reactor from an adjacent plant and equipment, so that Magnox can access the reactor core for disassembly. The project, expected to be completed in early 2017, will involve the removal of 1.5 kilometers of stainless steel pipework, according to an NDA press release.
Built in the 1950s, Winfrith served as a research hub for reactor design. Researchers explored nine experimental reactor designs, two of which remain: Dragon, a helium-cooled reactor, and the Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor, the only Winfrith reactor to support the national grid.
“It is the mission of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to ensure the safe and efficient clean-up of the UK’s nuclear legacy, and therefore this milestone at Winfrith is an important step forward,” NDA Chief Executive John Clarke said in a statement. “With a project as demanding and complex as this one, it is important to consider the options carefully. The Magnox Ltd programme team have been thorough in exploring the safest and most cost-effective approach to this project as it moves towards completion next year.”
