The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week released its draft environmental analysis in support of a revised Waste Confidence Determination, with staff remaining on track to have a new determination in place in 2014. The commissioners approved staff’s draft, and asked for a few additional details to be added before the document is released to the Federal Register. The NRC set a two-year timetable to renew the Waste Confidence decision last year after a court overturned the agency’s 2010 determination that spent nuclear fuel can be stored safely and without significant environmental impacts for 60 years after the end of the licensed life of a nuclear power plant. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in June 2012 said the determination was “deficient” as it wasn’t supported by a generic environmental impact statement. Though ultimately the commissioners did not direct staff to remove language indicating NRC believes a geologic repository will be sited within 60 years, Chairman Allison Macfarlane said, “I do not believe a Commission conclusion on repository availability that is wholly dependent on factors beyond the purview of the Commission, should be codified in the proposed rule.”
Changes commissioners directed staff to make to the draft analysis include addressing: impacts of long-term storage on cultural resources; key assumptions made in the draft guide environmental analysis and how those changes would be addressed in NRC’s regulatory framework; what NRC’s assumptions have been regarding institutional controls; why this effort is going on alongside studies on long-term storage; how this rulemaking relates to certifying spent fuel casks; and, how can future environmental analyses take the no-action alternative into account. Commissioners also indicated they wanted to see stakeholder feedback on specific questions, including whether specific timeline references to geologic repository efforts should be removed.
