Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
7/25/2014
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will consider six points raised by a petition sent on behalf of the Nuclear Energy Institute concerning the issuance of certificates of compliance for spent fuel storage casks, according to a posting in the Federal Register last week. NEI filed the petition in 2012 in hopes that the NRC would take a more risk-informed update to the regulations for the spent fuel storage casks’ CoCs. The six points under consideration by the NRC would help create a consistent and more efficient timeframe to the issuance of licenses for the storage casks, NEI said in its petition. “NEI is pleased that NRC has accepted our petition for rulemaking,” said Rod McCullum, NEI director of used fuel programs. “The proposed rulemaking would significantly improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the dry cask storage licensing process by standardizing licenses at an appropriate level of detail and making other needed changes to the regulations. We urge NRC to move forward expeditiously to complete this rulemaking.”
The six items for rulemaking consideration include: Adding a new rule for CoC format and content to enable better clarity; Adding backfit protection to CoC holders so it is applicable to CoC holders in addition to licensees; Deleting the requirement for the review of the cask Safety Evaluation Report; Clarifying the requirement to review various plans and programs such as emergency and training programs; Revising the requirement for cask making so that marking the empty weight on each storage cask is not needed; and expanding the scope of activities for which criticality monitoring is not required.
