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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