The Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff have both formally affirmed their intention to participate in any renewed adjudication of DOE’s license application for the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The parties’ easily anticipated confirmations were included in responses submitted in recent weeks to an Oct. 27 request for information from Margie Janney, acting administrator for the NRC’s Licensing Support Network (LSN), the retired electronic system for access to evidentiary documents in the Yucca Mountain license review process.
The LSN was established as a repository for documents related to the NRC’s adjudication of the 2008 DOE application for a license to build the planned Nye County, Nev., disposal facility for tens of thousands of tons of U.S. spent reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The system was shut down in 2011, the year after the Obama administration DOE suspended its licensing effort. Roughly 3.7 million documents, though, are stored in the LSN Library within the NRC’s ADAMS online document database.
Janney’s 11-question information request focuses on potential reconstitution of the Licensing Support Network, but begins with this question: “If the Yucca Mountain adjudication should be re-instituted, do you plan to participate?”
The Energy Department simply checked the “yes” box on a form submitted on Nov. 27 by the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. NRC staff also answered in the affirmative on Dec. 1, but added that its participation would be based on appropriation of funds and direction from the commission.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm for the nuclear industry, said separately on Nov. 21 it would participate in a resumed licensing adjudication.
All the documents were posted to the NRC website on Tuesday.
In total, there were 19 parties to the Yucca Mountain adjudication: DOE, NRC staff, and 17 non-federal entities including the state of Nevada and counties near the proposed disposal facility.
The Trump administration has sought to resume Yucca licensing, requesting $120 million for DOE and $30 million for the NRC for this work in the current fiscal 2018, which began on Oct. 1. The House supported Yucca funding in its energy appropriations bill, while Senate appropriators approved no money for the project in corresponding legislation that has not to date gone before the full chamber for a vote. Congress has yet to pass a budget for the full year, relying instead on short-term continuing resolutions that freeze spending at fiscal 2017 levels. That includes no money for Yucca Mountain.
In its response to the questionnaire, NRC staff said it anticipated making 1,000 to 2,000 additional items of documentary material available to other parties in the Yucca Mountain adjudication in the event of reconstitution or replacement of the Licensing Support Network. The Energy Department said it anticipated over 1,000 documents, but did not provide a more specific estimate.
Holtec International has submitted the majority of its responses to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s request for supplementary information regarding the company’s application to build a consolidated interim storage facility for used nuclear reactor fuel.
The information, spread across 11 attachments and hundreds of pages, was delivered in October and posted this week to the NRC’s online documents database.
“As stated in our previous letter … this submittal contains responses to all RSIs and observations, except for three RSIs that will be submitted at a later date,” Holtec Licensing Manager Kimberly Manzione wrote in an Oct. 6 letter to Jose Cuadrado, project manager for the NRC’s Spent Fuel Management Division.
The deadline for the remaining responses is Dec. 22, NRC spokesman David McIntyre said Thursday.
The Camden, N.J., company in March submitted a license application for a facility in southeastern New Mexico that could hold up to 120,000 metric tons of spent commercial reactor fuel. That would be more than sufficient to store the over 75,000 metric tons of waste now sitting at reactor plants until a permanent repository is built.
The NRC in July issued two separate requests for supplementary information based on its review of the application: one covering the application’s safety evaluation and environmental reports and another its physical security, safeguards contingency, and security training plans. All requests for supplementary information must be resolved before NRC staff can complete the acceptance review of the license application and move into the years-long technical review.
“If the staff deems them and the previous submittals sufficient, it will docket the application and set out a schedule for the review,” McIntyre said by email.
Among the documentation provided by Holtec in its October response: additional detail regarding emplacement of waste canisters into dry storage at the planned HI-STORE consolidated interim storage facility; various maps of the area in which the facility would be built; and resubmission of the license application under “oath or affirmation,” a mandatory step management failed to take previously.
The company did not respond to a request for comment this week.
The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday delayed by one month a vote on approval of plans to close the state’s last operating nuclear power plant.
Owner Pacific Gas & Electric’s application to retire the Diablo Canyon Power Plant is now scheduled to be considered at the commission’s Jan. 11 voting meeting. There was no discussion of the reason for the delay during Thursday’s committee session.
Under the 2016 “Joint Proposal” from the utility and partnering labor and environmental organizations, the two-reactor plant would be fully shut down by 2025. PG&E intends to replace Diablo Canyon’s power output with other forms of greenhouse-gas free power.
CPUC Administrative Law Judge Peter Allen in November recommended approval of the closure application, but argued against key funding components of the plan. He recommended the commission approve only $171.8 million in utility rate increases for anticipated costs related to Diablo Canyon’s closure, a sliver of the $1.76 billion called for under the Joint Proposal. That would eliminate $1.3 billion ratepayer funding for new energy sources and $85 million in community impact mitigation payments to offset the loss of jobs, tax revenue, and charitable donations upon Diablo Canyon’s closure.
Based on its history, the commission can be expected to sign off on Allen’s recommendation, the San Luis Obispo Tribune reported Wednesday.
PG&E and its partners have said they would contest the recommendations in verbal comments before the commission.
“All of these programs support the key focus of the joint proposal, which is having DCPP serve as a reliable and affordable clean energy bridge to 2025 while other greenhouse gas-free replacement resources are developed to replace the output we need to meet customer demand. Continuing to produce clean energy to 2025, and ensuring a responsible transition to other clean energy resources without increasing greenhouse gases is in our customer’s and the state’s interest. Accordingly, we believe the proposal we put forth is appropriate and deserves approval,” PG&E President and Chief Operating Officer Nick Stavropoulos said in a prepared statement at the end of November.
The Omaha, Neb., Public Power District has received authorization from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to curb emergency planning requirements for the retired Fort Calhoun Station nuclear power plant.
The single-reactor facility north of Omaha closed in October 2016 after 43 years of operations, and was defueled the following month. Its owner subsequently requested exemptions from select NRC emergency planning mandates, which received approval from the commission on Oct. 25 following review and recommendation by NRC staff.
Changes cannot be enacted until April 7 of next year, according to an NRC press release. But as of that date a specific off-site radiological emergency response plan will not be required for Fort Calhoun. State and local governments at that point can employ an “all-hazard” approach to emergency response for off-site response to incidents at the site. A 10-mile emergency planning zone will no longer be designated in the plant’s license.
“OPPD anticipates transitioning to its post-defueled emergency plan shortly after April 7, 2018, fulfilling our commitments to plant neighbors, OPPD’s customer-owners and the NRC,” spokesman Cris Averett said by email Friday.
The NRC said “OPPD provided analyses to show the exemptions are warranted because when compared to an operating power reactor, the risk of an offsite radiological release is significantly lower and the types of possible accidents significantly fewer at a nuclear power reactor that has permanently ceased operations and removed fuel from the reactor vessel.”
The Omaha Public Power District disclosed in March that it would cost close to $1.4 billion to sustain and ultimately decommission Fort Calhoun over a period of decades. All spent fuel is scheduled to be placed into dry-cask storage by 2020.
From The Wires
From the San Diego Union-Tribune: California Gov. Jerry Brown met with the senior executive from utility Edison International just weeks before the 2013 ex-parte meeting in Poland between leaders of subsidiary Southern California Edison and the California Public Utilities Commission that ultimately led to reopening of the $4.7 billion settlement for early closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
From VT Digger: Entergy prepares to make final $5 million payment into the restoration fund for the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
