The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering a petition to revise federal regulations and allow nuclear power plant operators to use their decommissioning trust funds for removal of major components prior to shutdown.
The agency on March 20 docketed the rulemaking petition filed in February by Gerard Van Noordennen, vice president for regulatory affairs at nuclear services firm EnergySolutions, on behalf of his employer.
The petition acknowledges the potential benefits of approval for EnergySolutions: disposal of customers’ “major radioactive components” (MRC) at its low-level radioactive waste facility in Clive, Utah. But EnergySolutions said the benefits would extend through the nuclear industry and its employees, the environment, and the commission itself.
Current NRC rules generally prohibit use of decommissioning trust funds for expenses not related to decommissioning – defined as the process of removing a facility from operations and reducing radioactivity levels to the point at which the property can be placed in separate restricted or unrestricted use.
“As such, the existing definition does not recognize that there may be significant advantages to removing MRC’s during operations such that the ultimate decommissioning of the facility can be completed in a more-timely and cost-effective manner while maximizing the use of existing low-level waste disposal capacity,” the EnergySolutions petition says.
Decommissioning does not begin until a plant has ended power-production operations. The fund can only be accessed for planning purposes until the facility owner provides the agency with its post-shutdown decommissioning activities report, which is allowed up to two years after closure.
Now, a regulatory exemption or amendment to NRC rules on plant licenses is needed to use decommissioning trusts for disposal of major radioactive components such as retired reactor steam generators. If approved, the rulemaking would eliminate the need for such measures.
Specifically, the Salt Lake City-based company wants the federal definition of decommissioning to say: “Decommissioning means removing major radioactive components during operations to later facilitate complete decommissioning and/or removing a facility or site safety from service and reduce residual radioactivity to a level that permits” restricted or unrestricted use.
A new paragraph would be added to the federal regulation on license termination, setting out the requirements for a nuclear licensee to use its decommissioning trust for disposal of major radioactive components: submittal to the NRC of a request to use a specific amount for that purpose; a decommissioning cost projection that covers the expense of disposal of MRCs; an analysis showing that the fund would remain sufficient to cover remaining decommissioning expenses; and an NRC finding that the fund would have sufficient cushion to cover any unanticipated developments in cleanup.
This approach would provide a number of benefits, according to EnergySolutions, including: improving environmental stewardship by removing radioactively contaminated equipment from power plants; reducing potential for radiation exposure by plant personnel; and shrinking the total cost of decommissioning “by avoiding future escalation in disposal costs due to spikes in demand resulting from numerous plants waiting until they shut down to dispose, creating a situation where eventually the majority of the fleet is seeking MRC disposal at the same time.”
The petition notes that roughly 130 of 209 steam generators taken out of over 60 power reactors are still on-site at their plants in storage structures. The costs to hold on to such equipment could be extended for decades as power plant lifespans are extended and decommissioning trusts remain inaccessible.
The agency previously rejected a similar 2007 rulemaking petition from EnergySolutions. But Van Noordennen, in his letter, said circumstances have changed to the point that this proposal should be approved. For one, he wrote, the increasing number of power plants that have closed or are expected to shut down in the next 10 years make it crucial to now consider best use of low-level radioactive waste options.
EnergySolutions operates two of the four licensed commercial facilities for disposal of low-level radioactive waste, at Clive and Barnwell, S.C. The others are US Ecology’s facility in Richland, Wash., and the Waste Control Specialists disposal complex near Andrews, Texas.
The NRC, in a March 22 letter notifying EnergySolutions that its petition had been docketed, did not offer any details of the process or timeline for the rulemaking. It is too early in the proceeding to provide those details, agency spokesman Scott Burnell said by email Tuesday.
“The staff will review the petition and public comments and will make a recommendation to the Commission about considering or denying the petition,” he wrote. “The Commission will decide, and the agency’s decision will be published in the Federal Register. If the path forward is to consider some or all of the petition in the rulemaking process, then that could be a new rulemaking or part of another ongoing rulemaking.”
