Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
5/2/2014
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledged this week that it will consider a petition to suspend all new reactor licensing decisions and license renewal decisions until it further examines the Environmental Assessment of high density spent fuel pools, according to a posting in the Federal Register. The petitioners, made up of a group of 34 environmental organizations, are concerned about information contained in a NRC report on the impact of a reactor pool fire at Peach Bottom Nuclear Station that said an earthquake would not affect the pool, although the potential for an accident existed, such as a small nuclear reactor pool fire that could render 9,400 square miles uninhabitable and displace 4.1 million Americans on a long-term basis. The group is arguing that this is information that has not been considered in previous licensing reviews, and under the National Environmental Policy Act, “new” and “significant” information bears re-consideration.
The group’s petition is requesting that the NRC re-do the environmental impact study on high-density spent fuel storage, as well as asking for the stop of any license renewal until that EIS is updated “to ensure compliance with NEPA.” The NRC said it would consider each request separately, but any findings from the impact study would be applied to its Waste Confidence rulemaking process currently underway. The NRC is not requesting a public comment period on the petition at this time, the posting said.
