Hanson

The vacant seat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was filled on June 8, when Christopher T. Hanson was sworn in as the agency’s fifth commissioner. The vacancy was created in April 2019 with the resignation of Stephen Burns. Hanson will serve the remainder of Burns’s term, which expires on June 30, 2024.

The antinuclear organization Beyond Nuclear has filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit requesting a review of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to deny its petition against Holtec International’s application to build and operate a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) for spent nuclear fuel in southeastern New Mexico.

Piercy

Nesbit

ANS Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on May 28 urging the agency to resume work on a proposed rulemaking to allow spent fuel reprocessing in the United States. As the letter explains, “the lack of an efficient, technically robust, and technology-inclusive regulatory foundation for reprocessing and recycling is a barrier to innovation.”

Steve Nesbit, who was recently elected ANS’s next vice president/president-elect, chairs the ANS Nuclear Waste Policy Task Force and helped develop the letter. ANS News staff talked with Nesbit about the development and goals of ANS’s participation in the NRC’s rulemaking process.

Robert J. Feitel was sworn in on May 28 by Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki as the agency’s new inspector general. Feitel replaces Hubert T. Bell, who retired in 2019.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is taking comments on its “Proposed Rule for Emergency Preparedness for Small Modular Reactors and Other New Technologies,” published in the Federal Register on May 12. The proposed rule and associated draft regulatory guide apply to non–light-water reactors and certain nonpower facilities.

Shine Medical Technologies, which is building a medical isotope production facility in Janesville, Wis., said on May 11 that it expects to have an operating license issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by October 2021. Shine’s application seeking approval to operate the facility, which will produce isotopes including molybdenum-99, was accepted and docketed by the NRC last October. Mo-99, the precursor to technetium-99m, is used in more than 40 million medical patient procedures every year.

Southern Nuclear has accepted a “white” finding (one of low to moderate safety significance) and an associated violation notice from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a problem at the company’s Vogtle nuclear plant, near Waynesboro, Ga. Earlier this year, Southern had contested the severity of the finding, arguing to no avail that the finding be more appropriately characterized as “green” (very low safety significance).

A Michigan antinuclear group will have an opportunity next month to explain to an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board why there should be a public hearing on a license amendment request (LAR) concerning the fuel racks used in the Fermi-2 spent fuel pool (SFP).

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation has created a web portal for nuclear reactor licensees to submit regulatory exemption requests related to the coronavirus pandemic. At this writing, the COVID-19 Regulatory Activities for Nuclear Reactors webpage is offering online submissions for 10 CFR Part 26 work-hour exemption requests.

Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear power plant, in Buchanan, N.Y., would remain safe in the event of a rupture of a 42-inch natural gas pipeline installed near the facility, according to a team of Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff and outside specialists.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued for public comment a draft NUREG on the backfit rule.

Recognizing the impacts of the current COVID–19 pandemic, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided to extend the public comment period on a proposed interpretation of its low-level radioactive waste disposal regulations. The new deadline for comments is July 20. The proposed LLW interpretive rule, announced on March 6, would permit licensees to dispose of waste by transfer to persons who hold specific exemptions for the purpose of disposal (NN, Apr. 2020, p. 47).

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will defer collecting fees and charges from its licensees due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a letter from NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki to a bipartisan group of lawmakers. The letter states, “The commission has approved a 90-day deferral of all annual fee (10 CFR Part 171) invoices that would have been issued in the third quarter of fiscal year 2020. The NRC is taking this action to temporarily mitigate the financial impacts and economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The new billing date for annual fees that were scheduled to be billed in the third quarter (April, May, and June) will be July 22, 2020.”

Recognizing the challenges that nuclear materials licensees may face in meeting certain regulatory requirements, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has developed options for licensees that may need regulatory relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. The options for providing regulatory relief were outlined in an April 7 letter from the NRC to licensees authorized to possess by-product, source, and special nuclear materials, including licensed nuclear materials users, uranium recovery, decommissioning (both materials and users), fuel facilities, and spent nuclear fuel storage facilities.

Surry Power Station. Photo: Dominion Energy.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued its final supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) on April 6 for Dominion Energy’s subsequent license renewal (SLR) application for Surry-1 and -2, concluding that the potential environmental impacts from continued operation of the units are not substantial enough to prevent the agency from considering issuance of the SLRs. The NRC had issued its final safety evaluation report on the Surry SLR application on March 9, with a similarly positive conclusion.

The Nuclear Energy Institute has released Nuclear by the Numbers, a 28-page report brimming with statistics showing the benefits of U.S. nuclear power generation. NEI issued a summary of the report in March (NN, Apr. 2020, p. 19).

On March 28, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission informed the industry via letter that nuclear plant operators can apply for 60-day exemptions from the agency’s work-hour control regulations—found in 10 CFR 26.205—to address workforce issues arising from the COVID-19 public health emergency. The pandemic has compelled some operators to limit the number of employees physically present at plants to “essential” personnel.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is issuing a proposed interpretation of its low-­level radioactive waste disposal regulations that would permit licensees to dispose of waste by transfer to persons who hold specific disposal exemptions. The NRC said that it will consider approval of requests for specific exemptions only if they are for the disposal of very low-­level radioactive waste by land burial. Notice of the proposed interpretive rule was published in the March 6 Federal Register.

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office concludes that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s fee-setting, billing, and budgeting processes have improved in recent years, but that industry stakeholders continue to identify challenges with these processes and that further enhancements should be implemented.

President Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2021, released on February 10, allots $35.4 billion to the Department of Energy. Nearly $1.2 billion of that goes to the Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE).

The final FY 2020 appropriations were signed into law on December 20, 2019, nine months after that budget was first proposed, and it could be several months before final appropriations for FY 2021 are enacted. Those enacted appropriations could bear little resemblance to the proposed budget. It bears noting that while the FY 2020 budget request for DOE-NE was $824 million, more than $1.493 billion—an increase of just over 87 percent—was ultimately enacted.