The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a meeting for April 25 in Florida to take public comment on Duke Energy’s request for the release of much of the property for its retired Crystal River nuclear power plant.
In January, Duke filed the request for release of 3,854 acres of the 4,738-acre property from the plant’s NRC license under Part 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations. If approved, the land would be available for unrestricted use, “enabling Duke Energy to potentially repurpose the property,” company spokeswoman Heather Danenhower said by email Monday. No decision has been made on future uses, she added.
Approval would not cover the plot of land that encompasses the reactor building, spent fuel storage pad, and other core infrastructure, according to NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. The nuclear facility itself covers only roughly 20 acres, Danenhower said.
“The NRC will carefully review the request,” Sheehan said by email on April 5. “Among other things, the company needs to demonstrate that any land proposed for unrestricted release would not expose a member of the public to more than 25 millirems of radiation (from past plant operations) in any year. For perspective, the average American is exposed to about 620 millirems of radiation on an annual basis from natural and manmade sources.”
The evaluation should wrap up within six months, he said.
In its filing, the Charlotte, N.C.-based power company said it had previously conducted surveys to ensure that radioactivity levels within the area intended for release are within allowable levels, Sheehan said. The NRC will determine whether further radiological surveys are needed, he added.
Nuclear services firm EnergySolutions, from August to October 2018, evaluated hundreds of soil samples, and took radiation readings, from the Duke property and four off-site locations around the state. The findings were in line with naturally occurring radiation levels.
Duke closed the Citrus County plant in 2013 and placed the pressurized-water reactor into SAFSTOR mode in 2015, under which it would have up to six decades to complete active decommissioning. Under that schedule, the power company would wrap up work in 2074. However, in the January filing, Duke said it is considering moving into active decommissioning.
“Regarding potentially speeding up the nuclear plant’s decommissioning, no decisions have been made,” Danenhower wrote. “If we decide changing our decommissioning plan is warranted, we will notify regulators and other internal/external stakeholders.”
The NRC meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Eastern time at the Holiday Inn Express Crystal River in Crystal River. Participants will include officials from the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards for NRC Region 1.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February spent $1,249 of its remaining available balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, leaving it with $407,230 absent an additional appropriation from Congress.
The NRC uses its portion of the federal fund to pay for work connected to its adjudication of the Department of Energy license application for a nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The February spending covered unspecified program planning and support, according to the agency’s latest report to Congress, posted April 5 on the NRC website.
The Energy Department filed its application with the NRC in 2008 during the George W. Bush administration, but the Obama administration defunded the proceeding two years later. However, a federal appeals court in August 2013 ordered the industry regulator to resume licensing activities.
The NRC as of February had spent over $13.1 million of the more than $13.5 million it had on hand from the fund at the time of the court directive. The top expenditures were: completion of a safety evaluation report for the project, at nearly $8.4 million; preparing a supplement to the Energy Department environmental impact statement for the repository project, at nearly $1.6 million; and loading documents from the license adjudication into the agency’s online documents library, at over $1.1 million.
The remaining balance of $437,151 covers $29,921 that has not been spent but is already obligated, the new report says.
The NRC has requested Congress appropriate $38.5 million from the Nuclear Waste Fund to enable the agency to resume the license adjudication in fiscal 2020, which begins Oct. 1. Congress rejected similar requests from the Trump administration in the last two budget cycles.
Committees in both chambers of the Texas Legislature have advanced separate but identical pieces of legislation intended to give Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists an edge in the market for disposal of low-level radioactive waste.
The Texas House Committee on Environmental Regulation on April 4 voted 5-3 in favor of Rep. Brooks Landgraf’s H.B. 2269. On Monday, the state Senate Natural Resources and Economic Development Committee voted 7-2 to report Sen. Kel Seliger’s S.B. 1021. Both lawmakers represent Andrews County in West Texas, home to the Waste Control Specialists disposal facility.
The company’s property encompasses the disposal facility for the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact. The state is the owner and one of just two members to the compact, along with Vermont, though 34 other states can also ship their low-level waste to the facility at higher fees.
Among other measures, the bills would shrink the surcharge for disposal of waste from non-compact states from 20% to 5% of the full contracted rate.
The legislation also requires the state to compare disposal fees paid by the two compact member states and all other states, and to issue rebates to Texas and Vermont if their average fees are higher than those for other waste generators. In addition, the measure would set aside exclusive disposal space, by both volume and curie, for the two compact member states.
Waste Control Specialists operates one of four U.S. commercial facilities for disposal of low-level waste. But it has struggled since its site opened in 2012, losing millions of dollars annually, which precipitated its sale in January 2018 from holding company Valhi Inc. to private equity firm J.F. Lehman & Co. The Landgraf and Seliger legislation is intended to drive up business from both in-compact and other states.
If passed, the measure would take effect on Sept. 1 of this year.
Money from the non-compact waste surcharge is funneled into a Texas general revenue account for environmental remediation and perpetual care. The Texas comptroller has projected the surcharge would provide $3.56 million annually, according to an analysis of the legislation. Reducing the surcharge to 5% would cut $2.67 million from that amount each year.
Nuclear company Orano USA said this week that a recent approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow four of its NUHOMS storage systems to be loaded spent fuel from nuclear power reactors after just two years of cooling.
Previously, used fuel assemblies had to remain in power plant cooling pools for up to five years before being placed into dry storage, Orano spokesman Curtis Roberts said Wednesday.
The update allows for storage in different storage systems of fuel assemblies with varying decay heats, up to 2.5 kilowatts. In all cases, those correspond to two years of cooling.
The change will allow nuclear plants that use the NUHOMS horizontal systems – now at more than 30 across the nation – to more quickly shift their spent fuel into dry storage. That is particularly key at retired facilities, more than halving the time needed to complete pool-to-pad operations, Orano said in a press release.
“Completing this milestone earlier reduces site emergency planning requirements and costs, while enabling the site to accelerate plant decommissioning and achieve partial license termination,” according to the company.
Orano (then AREVA) in March 2017 requested 11 distinct amendments to its NRC certificate of compliance for its Standardized NUHOMS System. Last November. the agency issued a final rule certified the so-called Amendment 15 to the certificate of compliance.
The amendment, which went into effect on Jan. 22, “revised the technical specifications of the certificate of compliance to: Unify and standardize fuel qualification tables; revise existing and add new heat load zoning configurations; increase the allowable maximum assembly average burnup; allow loading of damaged fuel assemblies under certain conditions; expand the definition of the poison rod assemblies to include rod cluster control assembly materials; allow other zirconium alloy cladding materials; add model OS197 as an authorized transfer cask; add the description for the solar shield in the updated final safety analysis report; and add flexibility to general licensees in verifying compliance regarding the storage pad location and the soil-structure interaction.”
From The Wires
From The Associated Press: Leaks of radioactive tritium have been found in roughly three-quarters of U.S. nuclear power plants.
From Reuters: European Union taking contract bids for storage and processing of nuclear waste from Georgia.
From the BBC: Security personnel at the United Kingdom’s Sellafield nuclear site vote to strike.
From the London Independent: Radioactive waste could be stranded at hospitals and other U.K. facilities due to concerns over the nation’s still-pending exit from the European Union.
From WDET: The state of Michigan is preparing to review public comments on the proposed expansion of a US Ecology waste facility in Detroit.
From the Knoxville News Sentinel: Coqui RadioPharmaceuticals to build medical isotope production plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn.
