By John Stang
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is taking public comment through June 5 on a request for an update to federal regulations regarding storage of spent nuclear reactor fuel.
Once the comments are received, NRC staff will review the petition for 12 to 18 months, depending on the number and complexity of the input. Staff will then submit a report with recommendations to the commission, which typically takes another six months.
Ray Lutz, and his California watchdog group Citizens’ Oversight, in January filed the petition for rulemaking on Title 10, Part 72, of the Code of Federal Regulations. His concern is that existing rules on licensing for independent storage of spent fuel, high-level radioactive waste, and reactor-related Greater-Than-Class C Waste are not sufficient given that the waste could remain on-site at nuclear power plants for an indefinite period of time.
El Cajon-based Citizens’ Oversight has particularly focused on the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County, where canisters from Holtec International are being used to move spent fuel from wet to dry storage. Transfer operations stopped briefly recently when a broken bolt was found in one canister.
In a 2017 settlement to a lawsuit filed by Citizens’ Oversight, SONGS majority owner Southern California Edison committed to seeking avenues to eventually move the radioactive waste off-site.
Lutz criticized Holtec’s canister for having a design life of 40 years when the radioactive material could be stored next to the Pacific Ocean for decades. Citizens’ Oversight believes spent nuclear fuel canisters nationwide should have a 1,000-year lifespan with maintenance and a 300-year lifespan without maintenance.
The Jan. 2 Citizens’ Oversight petition for rulemaking asserted the 40-year design life required for NRC licensing of spent fuel canisters is much too short. Lutz is seeking 14 specific updates to the Code of Federal Regulations, including that spent fuel storage systems be required to have a 1,000-year design life, and that operating-expense and safety-margin estimates for the design life be mandatory.
At a public briefing and hearing on SONGS issues last week, Lutz recommended his organization’s concept for a double-walled storage canister. The group’s proposal is called Hardened, Extended-Life, Local, Monitored, Surface Storage, or HELMS, a double-walled canister with pressured helium gas between the two shells. A drop in the helium pressure would make it easier for nuclear operators to detect a crack in the shell, Lutz said.
The U.S. Department of Energy is legally required to place spent fuel from all U.S. nuclear power plants into permanent disposal. However, it is more than two decades past the Jan. 31, 1998, deadline to begin accepting the fuel.
Two consolidated interim fuel storage facilities are on the drawing board, but first must secure regulatory approval from the NRC. The regulator in February docketed a full technical review of a license application from Holtec to build and operate a facility in southeastern New Mexico with a potential maximum capacity for up to 120,000 metric tons of spent fuel. Meanwhile, Waste Control Specialists and Orano have said they intend by the second quarter of this year to revive WCS’ suspended license application for a 40,000-metric-ton-capacity facility in West Texas.
The entire rulemaking petition can be found on the NRC’s ADAMS document database under accession number ML18022B207.
Comments can be submitted through several means: at http://www.regulations.gov, under Docket ID NRC–2018–0017; by email to [email protected]; by fax, to Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 301– 415–1101; by mail, to Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555–0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff; or in person, to 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852.
