Comments are being accepted until August 22 and can be submitted through the federal rulemaking website by searching for Docket ID NRC–2022–0135. Comments will also be accepted during the July 27th webinar.
Background: The isotope production facility for which SHINE is seeking a license is currently under construction in Janesville. It will create molybdenum-99, which subsequently produces technetium-99m, an isotope used in over 30 different diagnostic medical imaging procedures.
Information regarding the operating license review—proprietary details removed—is available on the NRC website.
Supplemental EIS: The NRC first issued its Environmental Impact Statement for the Construction Permit for the SHINE Medical Radioisotope Production Facility (NUREG–2183) in October 2015. A construction permit was issued the following year, and the company filed its application for a 30-year operating license in July 2019.
As required by federal regulations, when a final environmental impact statement (FEIS) has been prepared in connection with the issuance of a construction permit for a production or utilization facility, the NRC is required to prepare a supplement to the FEIS on the construction permit in connection with any issuance of an operating license for that facility.
Draft Supplement 1 to NUREG–2183, notice of which was published in the July 8 Federal Register, updates the prior environmental review by the NRC for the SHINE facility construction permit and covers only those matters that differ from or that reflect significant new information concerning matters discussed in the FEIS.
The NRC did not identify any information that presents a seriously different picture of the environmental consequences of constructing, operating, and decommissioning the facility. The preliminary recommendation of the NRC staff is that unless safety issues mandate otherwise, the commission approve the operating license.
