Nuclear plant fire reviews might take until 2020: NRC official

Washington (Platts)--10Feb2011/557 am EST/1057 GMT

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's reviews of requests by nuclear power plants to transition to a risk-informed approach to fire protection might not be completed before the end of the decade, John Grobe, deputy director for engineering and corporate support at the agency's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, told a public meeting Wednesday.

Some 51 of the US' 104 operating power reactors have notified the NRC they intend to adopt fire protection programs based on National Fire Protection Association Standard 805, approved by the commission in 2004. This approach uses plant-specific probabilistic risk assessments to identify and quantify fire risks.

NFPA 805 has been piloted at Progress Energy's Harris and Duke Energy's Oconee plants. Applications for other plants to transition to NFPA 805 are expected to be submitted by the end of June.

NRC staff is preparing an analysis of the impact of doubling or tripling the resources devoted to the reviews, Grobe said. Even if resources were tripled, however, the reviews would likely not be completed before 2014 or 2015, he said.

Some licensees have informed NRC they plan to delay submission of their applications, in some cases by years, and others plan to submit only partial applications by June, Grobe said.

He added, however, that he is "very confident" that about 60 to 80% of the applications expected by the end of June will be "complete" when they are submitted.

--Steven Dolley, steven_dolley@platts.com

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