The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is accepting public input on an application for a 40-year license renewal for operation of the independent spent fuel storage installation at the decommissioned Rancho Seco nuclear power plant in Herald, Calif.
Like other nuclear power operators around the country, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is waiting for the Department of Energy to meet its congressional mandate to find an off-site location for its spent nuclear reactor fuel. Until interim storage or permanent disposal is available, SMUD and its peers must manage that radioactive waste.
Rancho Seco closed in 1989 after just over 14 years of operation. The NRC terminated its operational license in 2009 upon completion of decommissioning. The dry fuel storage pad adjacent to the plant since 2002 has held 493 used fuel assemblies in 21 canisters, plus another canister of Greater-Than-Class-C waste. That is the entirety of used fuel generated at the plant, SMUD spokesman Christopher Capra said by email.
The current ISFSI license expires on June 30, 2020. If the license renewal is approved, SMUD would be authorized to “possess, transfer, and store spent fuel” from the facility for an additional four decades. Capra confirmed that the utility plans no changes at the ISFSI.
The NRC began its technical review of the license renewal application in July. The agency said it “will approve the license renewal application if it determines that the application meets the standards and requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), and the NRC’s regulations. These findings will be documented in a safety evaluation report.”
Stakeholders have until Oct. 22 to request a hearing or intervention in the license application. The NRC expects to rule on the application in June 2019.
In total, the agency is presently reviewing four license renewal applications for independent spent fuel storage installations. The others are storage pads for the now-demolished Trojan Nuclear Power Plant near Rainier, Ore.; the Humboldt Bay Power Plant near Eureka, Calif., where decommissioning is scheduled to wrap up by 2020; and the partly melted down Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pa., for which the ISFSI is located at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District has been awarded more than $100 million in damages in three lawsuits against the federal government for DOE’s failure to begin taking spent fuel by the Jan. 31, 1998, deadline set under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. SMUD’s costs, dating to 1998, encompass design, licensing, and loading of the ISFSI, along with management and security expenses that reach about $5 million per year.
“No lawsuits are pending,” Capra wrote. “SMUD is actively compiling damages information for costs incurred from mid-2015 onward and is evaluating the necessity for further legal action and would submit when ready.”
The federal government has to date paid out more than $6 billion in damages to nuclear utilities and its remaining liability as of fiscal 2016 was expected to reach nearly $25 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Most recently, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in June awarded just over $42 million to power company Entergy for breach of contract on disposal of spent fuel from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts.
While the future of the long-gestating radioactive waste repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada remains hotly contested, the NRC is reviewing two separate license applications for facilities that could hold spent fuel on a temporary basis of 40 years or more.
One of those applications comes from a partnership of Waste Control Specialists and Orano (formerly AREVA) for interim storage of up to 40,000 metric tons of waste in Andrews County, Texas. WCS President and Chief Operating Officer David Carlson said in June that, assuming regulatory approval, initial storage operations would focus on spent fuel from reactor sites that use licensed Orano and NAC International containers for their on-site storage. Rancho Seco is on that list, according to Carlson.
The NRC last week notified the Orano-WCS joint venture, formally called Interim Storage Partners, that it would resume the formal technical review of the application.
“A decision whether to ship [Rancho Seco] SNF to that facility will be made if and when it is fully-licensed,” Capra wrote.
