Anyone who wants to argue that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should unconditionally allow power plants to use their decommissioning funds to replace major equipment has until August to refute the agency’s new draft guidance that says otherwise.
“The disposal of the MRC [major radioactive components] when performed during the operational phase of the reactor facility is a cost of doing business and should be funded by a licensee as a business activity,” commission staff wrote in the draft guidance released June 21.
However, regulations do not restrict plant operators from creating and funding subaccounts in their decommissioning trust fund to pay for things other than the radiological decommissioning of the plant during the plant’s life, NRC staff said.
Subaccounts “designated for activities other than radiological decommissioning may be used at the discretion of the licensee at any time during operations or decommissioning,” according to the draft guidance.
But plant operators cannot simply transfer funds to these subaccounts from the main decommissioning account.
Nuclear plant operators in regulated markets, where the government sets rates for electricity generation, may create subaccounts “after demonstrating that the portion of the trust dedicated to radiological decommissioning is sufficiently funded under NRC’s regulations,” staff said in the draft guidance. These accounts can be funded by separate collections, approved by regulators, from ratepayers.
Merchant plants, those that have to compete financially with other sources of energy in a state, cannot transfer funds to subaccounts from radiological decommissioning accounts without getting an exemption from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, agency staff wrote in the draft guidance.
Comments on the draft guidance are due Aug. 21.
The nuclear power industry, representatives of which have called the off-site disposal of major radioactive components decommissioning by another name, wants NRC to revise federal regulations about what is and isn’t decommissioning with a full-fledged rulemaking.
NRC, for a number of reasons, has declined to do so. Industry made its most recent request for a rulemaking in 2019.
Editor’s note, Aug. 05, 2024, 4:08 p.m. Eastern time. The story was changed to show the means by which regulated reactor operators may create subaccounts in their decommissioning trust funds.
