SUMMERLIN, NEV. — The final version of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s updated rule for decommissioning nuclear power plants should be ready in a little under two years, the agency said this week.
NRC staff plan to send the updated decommissioning rule to the commissioners for approval in October 2023, teeing up final publication in the Federal Register by May 2024, assuming a favorable vote from the commission, an NRC spokesperson wrote this week in an email.
The rule would reduce some agency-mandated physical security and emergency preparedness requirements for operators transitioning shuttered plants to decommissioning.
The proposed change, which NRC’s three commissioners approved in November on a 2-1 vote, aims to eliminate requirements the agency has said don’t reflect “lower safety hazard[s]” during decommissioning. Currently, plant operators must ask NRC for individual exemptions from such regulations.
The commission is currently accepting public comments on the proposed rulemaking. NRC in May extended the deadline for community input through the end of August.
During a panel at the annual RadWaste Summit, hosted here by the Exchange Monitor, Jeff Dunlap, head of spent fuel and decommissioning at Constellation Nuclear, voiced his general support for the proposed rulemaking. “This proposal, in our mind, will improve efficiency while maintaining the same level of public confidence,” he said.
At the same panel, Bruce Montgomery, director of the prominent nuclear trade group Nuclear Energy Institute’s decommissioning and spent fuel branch, pushed back on opponents of the proposed rulemaking who have in recent months pressured NRC to put public involvement at the center of its decommissioning regulations.
“There are at least two Senators … and one [NRC] commissioner that are not so happy that this rule is going forward without a recommendation for public involvement in this process that the industry would be interested in,” Montgomery said.
Opponents of the proposed rule, such as Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), would rather see a “European-style” licensing process that would require NRC to approve a plant operator’s decommissioning plan, he said. “That’s not something we’ve ever had in the U.S. It’s not something we in the industry are interested in.”
