Utah’s state-backed Carbon Free Power Project may need an exemption to existing Nuclear Regulatory Commission decommissioning funding requirements for the six NuScale Power small modular reactors the company plans to build at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, commission staff wrote in a letter to NuScale. The letter was published online May 1 and dated April 24.
In a February meeting with NRC, NuScale, majority owned by Fluor Corp, tried to convince the commission that the proposed small fleet of reactors should be legally able to calculate its decommissioning funding requirements based on the total energy its six modules are capable of creating. NRC staff, in their April letter, were unconvinced and asked to see a more detailed decommissioning study from NuScale.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has purged government devices in its agency of the social media app TikTok. Congress banned the popular video-based app, owned by a subsidiary of a Chinese company, in the 2023 omnibus budget bill passed in December.
In a letter dated May 4, NRC’s chief information officer notified the White House Office of Management and Budget that the civilian nuclear regulator completed its TikTok purge.
In a brief reply to New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), NRC Chair Christopher Hansen did not, it turns out, direct commission staff to suspend consideration of the license Holtec International has requested to build an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the Land of Enchantment.
In a letter posted online May 2 and dated April 25, Hanson said the NRC would decide the fate of Holtec’s license in May and that the commission “will continue to keep you, your staff and members of your Cabinet informed as the NRC staff works toward a licensing decision.” Lujan Grisham in March, after New Mexico banned the storage of spent fuel within its borders, asked NRC to drop the license request altogether.
Georgia Power said May 1 that it finished hot functional testing of the Unit 4 nuclear reactor at Vogtle Electric Generating Plant. The reactor “is projected to enter service in late fourth quarter 2023 or the first quarter 2024,” Georgia Power wrote in a press release.
Vogtle Unit 4 is the last new commercial U.S. nuclear power reactor scheduled to come online for the foreseeable future. Unit 3 began generating electricity in April.
