Nuclear foe says no-reactor option should be top choice in NRC waste rule

Washington (Platts)--5Dec2012/550 pm EST/2250 GMT

An anti-nuclear activist told US Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff Wednesday he believes an option that would see the US build no more nuclear power plants or extend the licenses of current units should be the preferred alternative in a generic environmental impact statement the agency is developing for a revised rule on spent fuel storage.

Combined construction permits-operating licenses for new reactors as well as extensions of operating licenses for existing nuclear units should be denied, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said the during the agency's first EIS scoping webinar for a revised waste confidence rule.

Waste confidence is central to the agency's ability to license to new reactors and to renew the operating licenses of existing ones.

The 2010 waste confidence rule that the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit remanded to agency in June said the commission has reasonable assurance that utility spent fuel can be safely stored for more than 100 years. The rule did not specify when a repository would be available to dispose of that waste but said the commission has reasonable assurance one would be ready when needed.

But the court said NRC failed to consider the potential environmental impacts if a repository were never available, if a spent fuel storage pool leaked and if a fire occurred in the storage pool. NRC commissioners earlier directed agency staff to develop a generic EIS within two years to support a revised waste confidence rule that would address the court's concerns. The no reactor option supported by Kamps is not one the agency is considering.

Kamps commended the court's mandate that NRC look at the impact if the country were to fail to site a repository for the disposal of utility spent fuel. The US Department of Energy's repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada was "a proposal for a generation and has now been canceled," Kamps said.

The federal government began studying that site around 1982 but dismantled the program in 2010, calling the site "unworkable" due to unyielding opposition to the proposed disposal facility.

--Elaine Hiruo, elaine_hiruo@platts.com 
--Edited by Jeff Barber, jeff_barber@platts.com

 

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