ISFSI liability protection gap
Hello:
The Price-Anderson Act provides compensation for offsite damages from a nuclear plant release of radioactivity. Kinda. Sorta.
When a nuclear plant is operating, up to nearly $16 billion is available for harm caused by radioactivity released from a reactor core, its spent fuel pool, or an onsite ISFSI.
This liability protection consists of private insurance (currently at $500 million) purchased by the plant owner supplemented, if necessary, by funds collected from the owners of other operating nuclear plants.
When a nuclear plant permanently shuts down, the NRC approves exemptions from the Price-Anderson insurance coverages. In November 2023, the NRC approved an exemption for Indian Point reducing its private insurance level to $100 million and dropping the site from the supplemental pool.
The NRC's "logic" for the exemptions is that the risk of an accident at an ISFSI is very, very, very low. Perhaps. But is the risk of a terrorist act at an ISFSI of a permanently shut down plant equally low? The NRC's "analysis" did not consider terrorist acts. And the force-on-force tests of security at operating plants is terminated once a plant permanently shuts down.
To be fair, nuclear security is quite good. No nuclear plant or dry cask has ever been stolen (as far as we know).
But a terrorist act at the Indian Point ISFSI were to cause more than $100 million in offsite damages, who would provide the compensation? Who? And how?
Perhaps the Stafford Act would fill in for the AWOL Price-Anderson Act. All it would take is an act by the federal government (you know, the folks who have been shut down the past few weeks because of their inability to reach agreement on a budget) to invoke the act.
The NRC's assumption that a terrorist attack on an ISFSI at a permanently shut down nuclear plant should be backed, at least, by their conducting force-on-force tests of the untested security they are relying so much on to protect Americans.
In the force-on-force tests conducted at operating reactors, the mock bad guys "win" a small percentage of the time (about 4 to 5 percent.) That's good. It shows the tests don't ask simply questions like "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb" and accept "Dead people" as a correct answer. The losses allow security weaknesses to be remedied before real bad guys can exploit them. Force-on-force tests are essential in determining that security is sufficient and identifying gaps needing to be closed.
Thanks,
Dave Lochbaum
Dave Lochbaum
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