Despite this year’s spate of plant closures the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is asking for increased funding for regulation of new reactors during the 2022 fiscal year, according to recently published budget documents.
Of the roughly $890 appropriation NRC would get if the Joe Biden administration’s budget plan were to become law, about $89 million would go to the new reactors business line within the independent agency’s Nuclear Reactor Safety Program, according to a budget table published by the agency Friday. That’s about a 14% increase from the $78 million the new reactors program got in fiscal 2021.
There’s currently just one nuclear plant where new reactors are being built — the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Station in Georgia. By contrast, four plants are slated to close this year, a process that started with New York’s Indian Point Generating Station April 30.
As for decommissioning and low-level waste disposal operations, the NRC’s budget request increases funding by less than a percentage point to $22.9 million for fiscal 2022 from $22.8 million in the previous fiscal year.
The commission’s request for spent fuel storage and transportation remained stagnant for fiscal 2022, hovering at around $28 million.
NRC’s full budget justification had not yet been published at deadline Thursday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. Publication at that time was still “pending,” according to the agency’s website.
