By John Stang
In just a handful of comments to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, representatives from the nuclear industry signaled support for a proposal to allow some power plant decommissioning funds to be applied before shutdown.
The deadline for comments was Aug. 26. The Regulations.gov web page for the rulemaking petition showed only six comments as of Friday, from used nuclear fuel management company NAC International; nuclear services provider Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Systems; former NRC official and industry consultant Larry Camper; individuals Samuel Wender and Ken Berg; and one anonymous commenter.
Gerard Van Noordennen, a senior vice president at nuclear services firm EnergySolutions, filed the petition in February on behalf of his employer. The ultimate purpose would be to initiate an NRC rulemaking that would revise federal regulations to allow nuclear power plant operators to use their decommissioning trust funds for removal of major components before a facility suspends operations.
“The Major Radioactive Components (MRC’s) which are the subject of the petition are destined for disposal and the nuclear utilities should have the flexibility to use decommissioning trust funds during operations to facilitate timely disposal of these components,” Gregory Martin, vice president for nuclear operations at Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Systems, wrote in his submitted comments. “Accordingly, the requested modifications do not in any way serve to compromise the funding process in support of final decommissioning and provides much needed flexibility for the nuclear utilities.”
Current NRC rules generally prohibit use of the trust funds for expenses not related to decommissioning – defined as the process of removing a facility from operations and reducing radioactivity levels to the point at which the property can be placed in separate restricted or unrestricted use.
In the eyes of the NRC, decommissioning cannot begin until the reactor is shut down. Now, a regulatory exemption or amendment to NRC rules on plant licenses is needed to use trusts for disposal of major radioactive components, such as retired reactor steam generators, prior to the start of decommissioning. A revision to the existing regulations could eliminate the need for such a measure.
EnergySolutions has acknowledged it wants to dispose of customers’ “major radioactive components” at its low-level radioactive waste facility in Clive, Utah. But the company says the benefits would extend through the nuclear industry and its employees, the environment, and the commission itself. For example, according to EnergySolutions: the change would provide greater flexibility in preparing a reactor site for decommissioning, including the possibility of saving money in the long run.
The Salt Lake City-based company is specifically seeking an update of the federal definition of decommissioning to say: “Decommissioning means removing major radioactive components during operations to later facilitate complete decommissioning and/or removing a facility or site safety from service and reduce residual radioactivity to a level that permits” restricted or unrestricted use.
Changing the regulation would reduce the amount of contaminated equipment on a site prior to decommissioning, decrease exposure to workers from stored decontaminated equipment, and make actual decommissioning less costly and complicated, according to Kent Cole, president and CEO of NAC International.
“The MRCs which are the subject of the petition are destined for disposal and the nuclear utilities should have the flexibility to use decommissioning trust funds during operations to facilitate timely disposal of these components in a cost effective manner to maximize the reduction in disposal cost and thus aid in ensuring that ample decommissioning trust funds remain available when full decommissioning takes place,” wrote Camper, who held several management roles at the NRC, retiring as director for the Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and Waste Management Programs.
The anonymous commenter was the only one to voice caution about the concept — agreeing with the flexibility argument, but adding that a limit should be put on how much decommissioning fund money can be used for pre-decommissioning work in order avoid financial abuse of the proposed rule change.
There was no word from the NRC by deadline Friday regarding its timeline for processing the rulemaking petition. An agency spokesman in April said staff would evaluate the petition and public comments before making a recommendation to the commission, which would have final say.
The commission in 2007 rejected a similar petition from EnergySolutions.
