The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the process of implementing new inspection procedures that will standardize a more streamlined protocol across all of its standalone spent nuclear fuel storage facilities, the agency said Thursday.
In a Tweet, the NRC said their enhanced guidelines for oversight of independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs) focus on “the most safety-significant activities.”
We’ve begun implementing our enhanced inspection procedures for independent spent #nuclear fuel installations. The changes focus our oversight on the most safety-significant activities. https://t.co/6gwuan7Qfm pic.twitter.com/XTbqUTLWv0
— NRC (@NRCgov) January 21, 2021
There are 77 commission-licensed ISFSIs located in 35 states as of August 2019 — both dry-cask storage and wet pool storage facilities. Inspections determine whether these locations are following agency protocols for procedures like testing and long-term storage.
Nuclear power plants store their spent fuel at facilities like these, in the absence of dedicated permanent repositories. They’re located on-site or nearby to the plants themselves.
The commission formed a working group in June 2019 to evaluate their existing inspection program, and the group provided its recommendations in a report to the agency published in May 2020.
Among the working group’s suggestions was a standardized interval for inspections, which they recommended occur every three years. At the time of the group’s evaluation, NRC guidelines allowed for inspections to take place both every two and every three years, the 2020 report said.
The group also recommended measures to formalize the qualification process for inspectors and to streamline the program while maintaining safety, the report said. According to the status report linked in the commission’s Tweet, an issue memorandum on the completed effort should arrive this month.
