TMI Update: Jan 14, 2024

Did you catch "The Meltdown: Three Mile Island" on Netflix?
TMI remains a danger and TMIA is working hard to ensure the safety of our communities and the surrounding areas.
Learn more on this site and support our efforts. Join TMIA. To contact the TMIA office, call 717-233-7897.

    

SUSQUEHANNA STEAM ELECTRIC STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2 – INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000387/2023003 AND 05000388/2023003

SUSQUEHANNA STEAM ELECTRIC STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2 – INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000387/2023003 AND 05000388/2023003
 
ADAMS ACCESSION NUMBER: ML23307A002
 
By admin at Sat, 11/04/2023 - 13:13

AJC: Groups want Vogtle cost hearings halted until Georgia PSC elections are held

Groups want Vogtle cost hearings halted until Georgia PSC elections are held
 
Elections for two seats on the Public Service Commission have been postponed for nearly a year
 
PSC Chairman Tricia Pridemore (center) and other commissioners are shown during a vote on May 16, 2023.<br /> Miguel Martinez /miguel.martinezjimenez@ajc.com
 
Caption
Credit: Miguel Martinez

https://www.ajc.com/news/groups-want-vogtle-cost-hearings-halted-until-psc-elections-are-held/WBNJ5B6KGJEWPE6SAQFT66UOGI/

A pair of environmental interest groups have asked the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) to hold off on deciding how much of Plant Vogtle’s remaining costs will fall to Georgia Power ratepayers until after a pair of postponed elections for two of the commission’s five seats are held.

A petition was filed on October 26 by Nuclear Watch South, a group whose goals include phasing out nuclear power, and Georgia WAND, a local nonprofit focused on environmental justice and the “health hazards resulting from nuclear energy and weapons.”

The first of Plant Vogtle’s new units was completed this summer seven years late and the second new reactor is more than six years behind schedule. The total price tag of project has swelled to more than $35 billion, and Georgia Power estimates it will have spent just under $10.8 billion on construction by the time the expansion is complete.

Early next month, the PSC is set to hear testimony about which costs incurred by Georgia Power to build Plant Vogtle’s two new nuclear reactors were “prudent” and should be allowed to be collected from the company’s electricity customers. The commission is scheduled to take a final vote on potential rate increases to pay for the units on December 19.

But the groups argue that given the “financial magnitude of the decision,” the vote should be delayed until after the body is comprised of “duly elected commissioners.”

“... Any proceeding in which two un-elected commissioners participate or vote unduly jeopardizes the authority and legitimacy of this Commission’s decision and renders it vulnerable to judicial challenge and reversal,” the groups wrote in their petition.

The two commission seats in question belong to Vice Chairman Tim Echols and Commissioner Fitz Johnson, both Republicans.

Echols was elected to the District 2 seat on the commission in 2016. Johnson, meanwhile, was appointed to fill the District 3 seat by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2021, after then-Commissioner Chuck Eaton stepped down to join the Atlanta Judicial Circuit.

Elections for the seats held by Echols and Johnson were supposed to be on ballots last November. But after a legal challenge to Georgia’s system for electing PSC commissioners went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in August 2022, the elections were postponed. They have remained in limbo ever since, as the parties wait on a ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It remains unclear when the appeals court will make a decision.

In the meantime, Echols and Johnson have continued to serve and vote in cases that come before the commission. Attorneys for the PSC have said that the appeals court’s earlier ruling clearly allows the commissioners to do so until after an election is held.

During a public comment period after the commission’s meeting on Thursday, Glenn Carroll, a coordinator for Nuclear Watch South and a co-signer of the petition, asked the commission to consider the group’s request to delay the Vogtle vote.

PSC Chairman Jason Shaw said the commission is reviewing the petition, but would give other interested parties 30 days to respond. Preston Thomas, a PSC staff attorney, said that according to the PSC’s guidelines, it will be up to the chairman to make a decision on the group’s request at the start of the Vogtle cost hearings. Those are set to begin on December 4.

Thomas also said that the commission’s legal staff believes the petition is “without merit” and said the group’s concerns would be up to the federal appeals court to decide, not the PSC.

In the meantime, Georgia Power has already struck a preliminary deal with the PSC staff and some consumer advocacy groups would allow it to collect $7.6 billion of the remaining Vogtle costs from ratepayers. The rest would be absorbed by shareholders of its parent, Southern Company.

If that plan is approved by the PSC, it could drive the average residential customer’s monthly bill up by $9.

_______________________

Glenn Carroll
Coordinator
Nuclear Watch South

By admin at Sat, 11/04/2023 - 13:03

NRC Staff Approves License Transfer for South Texas Project

Nuclear Regulatory Commission - News Release
No: 23-069 October 31, 2023
CONTACT: Scott Burnell, 301-415-8200
 
NRC Staff Approves License Transfer for South Texas Project
 
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has approved the transfer of licenses for South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2, and its associated spent fuel storage facility from NRG South Texas to Constellation Energy Generation.
 
The transfer is part of Constellation’s planned acquisition of NRG South Texas and its 44 percent ownership interest in the plant, which is located in Bay City, Texas, approximately 90 miles southwest of Houston. There are two other licensed owners with minority interests. The plant will continue to be operated by STP Nuclear Operating Co. on behalf of the three co-owners.
 
The NRC staff’s review of the license transfer application concluded that Constellation was financially qualified to be a licensed owner and would continue to provide reasonable assurance that funds will be available to eventually decommission the plant.
 
There is a hearing request currently pending before the Commission. The transfer approval is subject to the Commission’s authority to rescind, modify, or condition the transfer based on the outcome of any subsequent hearing on the application.
 
By admin at Thu, 11/02/2023 - 14:42

NRC Announces Carrie M. Safford as the New Commission Secretary Inbox

Nuclear Regulatory Commission - News Release
No: 23-068 October 31, 2023
CONTACT: Office of Public Affairs, 301-415-8200
 
NRC Announces Carrie M. Safford as the New Commission Secretary
 
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission today announced the selection of Carrie M. Safford as the new Secretary of the Commission, effective Nov. 5. She is the fifth person in the 48-year history of the NRC to hold this position.
 
Safford has been serving as a Deputy Director in the Division Fuel Management, which has regulatory responsibility for nuclear fuel cycle activities in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
 
She succeeds Brooke Poole Clark, who assumed her new position as the agency’s General Counsel in mid-October.
 
In her new role, Safford will provide executive management services to support the Commission and implement Commission decisions. The Office of the Secretary serves a critical role with its responsibilities for scheduling Commission meetings, managing the Commission's decision-making process, codifying Commission decisions in memoranda, processing and controlling Commission correspondence, and maintaining the Commission’s historical records, among other duties.
 
“Carrie has served in a variety of capacities and brings extensive legal and regulatory experience,” said NRC Chair Christopher T. Hanson. “Her proven executive leadership and vast knowledge of the agency’s policies and procedures well positions her to keep the Commission’s business functioning smoothly.”
 
Safford joined the NRC in 2008 as an attorney, and later was selected as Deputy Assistant General Counsel in the Division of Materials Litigation and Enforcement within the Office of the General Counsel. She has served in leadership positions across the agency, including as Deputy Director of the Waste Confidence Directorate in NMSS; and as Assistant General Counsel in OGC in the Division of High-Level Waste, Fuel Cycle and Nuclear Security, and in the Division of Legislation, Ethics, and Administrative Law.
 
Before joining the NRC, Safford practiced energy law in Washington, D.C. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology-Geology from the University of Rochester and her Juris Doctor from Pace University School of Law. Safford is a graduate of the NRC’s Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program.
 
By admin at Thu, 11/02/2023 - 14:40

PEACH BOTTOM ATOMIC POWER STATION, UNITS 2 AND 3 – INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000277/2023003 AND 05000278/2023003 AND EXERCISE OF ENFORCEMENT DISCRETION

PEACH BOTTOM ATOMIC POWER STATION, UNITS 2 AND 3 – INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000277/2023003 AND 05000278/2023003 AND EXERCISE OF ENFORCEMENT DISCRETION
 
ADAMS ACCESSION NUMBER: ML23303A091
 
By admin at Mon, 10/30/2023 - 23:59

Environmental Protection Agency sued over Oak Ridge landfill for radioactive waste – Tennessee Lookout

 
Environmental Protection Agency sued over Oak Ridge landfill for radioactive waste
Suit by environmental alleges toxic runoff could infiltrate waterways
BY:  - OCTOBER 27, 2023
A worker at K-25 Plant Oak Ridge Tennessee in 1945. (Photo: Ed Wescott, U.S. Department of Energy/National Park Service)

 A worker at K-25 Plant Oak Ridge Tennessee in 1945. (Photo: Ed Wescott, U.S. Department of Energy/National Park Service)

The Environmental Protection Agency is illegally withholding records that could shed light on why it approved plans to build a radioactive waste landfill in Oak Ridge over the objections of senior government officials, an environmental group claims.

The landfill serves as a receptacle for remnants of decades-old low-level radioactive waste from  the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb. Its debris comes from demolished structures from the Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The landfill’s location – on a Superfund site near scenic local waterways – raised contamination concerns among officials within the EPA and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

Former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler nevertheless approved the plan, which required waiving Clean Water Act rules, in the waning days of the Trump Administration — a decision upheld by his Biden Administration successor, Michael Regan.

Now, according to the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) advocacy group, holdover EPA officials from the prior administration are responsible for illegally denying its Freedom of Information Act requests related to Wheeler’s decision for nearly a year.

Superfund aims to clean up toxic hot spots, not create more of them. The core issue is that Superfund cleanups must be done in accordance with, not in violation of, the Clean Water Act.

– Tim Whitehouse, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

The agency is “frustrating (PEER’s) efforts to adequately understand and educate the public regarding EPA actions and policies” that guided the landfill decision, a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month in the District of Columbia said. The suit is seeking a court order releasing thousands of records related to the Oak Ridge landfill.

An EPA spokesperson said Thursday that the agency does not comment on pending litigation. The Department of Energy did not respond to questions from the Tennessee Lookout.

The decision to create a landfill that could leak potentially toxic runoff into northeast Tennessee streams and creeks has raised broader concerns.

The Department of Energy, which operates the Oak Ridge site, has indicated they intend to pursue similar waivers of the Clean Water Act at a Superfund site in Paducah, Kentucky.

“Superfund aims to clean up toxic hot spots, not create more of them,” said Tim Whitehouse, a former senior EPA enforcement attorney who now serves as PEER’s director. “The core issue is that Superfund cleanups must be done in accordance with, not in violation of, the Clean Water Act.”

The EPA division housing Superfund has not had a leader under the Biden Administration because the Senate has not confirmed one, “leaving the program in the hands of holdover staff,” he said. 

EPA staff who prepared briefing material for Regan, the Biden Administration chief who upheld his predecessor’s decision to green-light the landfill, suspect that the concerns they raised did not make it through those holdover senior staff, the advocacy group said. 

Clarification: This story has been updated to note the landfill takes in debris from the Y-12 National Security Complex as well as Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

By admin at Sun, 10/29/2023 - 12:50

Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2 - Regulatory Audit Plan in Support of Relief Request 5RR-02 (EPID L-2023-LLR-0027)

Subject: Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2 - Regulatory Audit Plan in Support of Relief Request 5RR-02 (EPID L-2023-LLR-0027)
 
ADAMS Accession No.:  ML23290A262
 
 
Using Web-based ADAMS, select “Advanced Search”
Under “Property,” select “Accession Number”
Under “Value,” enter the Accession Number
Click Search
By admin at Sat, 10/28/2023 - 11:10

Holtec CBS PEC Presentation Slides for 10/26/2023

NRC Meeting re Holtec SNF Storage Cask Design Violations: Oct 26, 2023 (9am EST)  Webinar Link:
 
 
The Holtec CBS PEC Presentation Slides 
 
Document Title:
Holtec CBS PEC Presentation Slides
Document Type:
Slides and Viewgraphs
Document Date:
10/25/2023

​​​​​

By admin at Fri, 10/27/2023 - 10:25

FRN on Radiological Survey to Support License Termination

FRN on Radiological Survey and Dose Modeling of the Subsurface to Support License Termination
 
Document Title:
Federal Register Notice on Draft Interim Staff Guidance: Radiological Survey and Dose Modeling of the Subsurface to Support License Termination
Document Type:
Federal Register Notice
Document Date:
10/16/2023
By admin at Wed, 10/25/2023 - 01:57

DOE’s Office of Hearings and Appeals Compels SRS to Release Documents on Failed Efforts to Import Highly Radioactive Spent Fuel from Germany

SRS Watch news release, October 24, 2023 posted here:

https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/News-failed-German-spent-fuel-import-October-24-2023.pdf

Savannah River Site Watch
Columbia, South Carolina  USA
https://srswatch.org/
For Immediate Release
October 24, 2023

Contact: Tom Clements, SRS Watch, tel. 803-834-3084, srswatch@gmail.com

DOE’s Office of Hearings and Appeals Compels the Savannah River Site to Release Key Documents Related to Failed Decade-Long Efforts to Import Highly Radioactive Spent Fuel from Germany

Documents Reveal Frantic Interactions with Germany in Misguided Attempt to Import Highly Radioactive Waste to DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, for Processing and Dumping

Columbia, SC – Internal U.S. Department of Energy email communication reveals that efforts to keep alive a decade-long scheme to import highly radioactive German spent fuel to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina were unsuccessful and the effort was terminated by German authorities. The termination of the project has been celebrated by those who support clean-up at SRS of waste created as a result of production of plutonium and other materials for nuclear weapons.

Emails from 2022 and 2023, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the non-profit organization Savannah River Site Watch, clearly show DOE officials and the company aiming to ship the material, Edlow International, frantically working to keep the faltering project alive and that they lacked an understanding of the political situation in Germany against the export.  DOE originally failed to provide the emails to SRS Watch in response to a FOIA request but SRS Watch appealed the lack of an “adequate search” to DOE’s Office of Hearings and Appeals and won, compelling release of the emails.

If the project had gone forward, a large amount of irradiated graphite fuel stored in 152 casks could have been dumped at SRS with the inexplicable cooperation of the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), the very office engaged in clean-up at the site. If this misguided EM effort had gone forward clean-up of the site could have been significantly complicated and delayed.

The failure of the effort to import the nuclear waste to SRS is lauded as an environmental victory by the non-profit organization Savannah River Site Watch. Likewise, the project’s failure to develop a reprocessing technique to remove uranium from the irradiated graphite fuel is positive from a nuclear non-proliferation perspective.

“Boosters of the project were aiming to make financial hay from the scheme, which would have had the unacceptable outcome of more hard-to-manage nuclear waste being dumped at SRS,” said Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch. “We wish that to thank our German colleagues for their diligence in making sure the highly radioactive waste stays where it is currently located in Germany.”

The emails indicate that the media office at SRS was going to admit in a “comms plan” one of the reasons for termination of the project, but the explanation was quashed by a DOE official in headquarters who was desperately looking for a positive spin on the status of the failing project:

"The Department of Energy has decided to stop contract negotiations for technology development and the potential acceptance and processing of German graphite-coated spent nuclear fuel spheres at the Savannah River Site. Moving forward with this effort would be inconsistent with current priorities to accelerate mission completion, minimize risks, reduce costs, and reduce EM’s long-term liability at Savannah River. A number of outstanding contract issues remain, and negotiations with the German nuclear research corporation Jülicher Entsorgungsgesellschaft für Nuklearanlagen mbH (JEN) have reached an impasse with further talks unlikely to change the respective positions on these issues. DOE will continue to welcome missions at Savannah River consistent with its goals and priorities."

In one of the emails obtained by SRS Watch, and dated October 19, 2022, JEN confirmed they were the ones who terminated the project and informed SRS about the decision. Those reasons include: illegality of export of the material from Germany, a decision to build a new storage facility where the waste is now stored, implementation of policies to minimize the risky transport of the material and failure by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) to develop a processing technique.

Consultation began in 2012 between DOE and German entities to export spent fuel from a long closed experimental gas-cooled reactor - the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Versuchsreaktor (AVR) - with research into processing of the nuclear waste being done by the Savannah River National Laboratory. The spent fuel, some of which contains U.S.-origin uranium, consists of about 290,000 uranium-impregnated irradiated graphite balls, stored in 152 robust Castor casks stored at the Forschungszentrum Jülich (Jülich Research Center, FZJ), located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) in western Germany. The spent fuel is currently managed by the government entity Jülicher Entsorgungsgesellschaft für Nuklearanlagen mbH (JEN) and should stay at Jülich until comprehensive federal plans are developed and implemented for spent fuel disposal and not trucked to a temporary storage site in Ahaus, Germany.

SRS Watch joins German anti-nuclear colleagues and in supporting construction of a new storage facility at Jülich, or upgrading of the current facility, and no transport of the spent fuel in questions away from that current storage site. For more information from German groups, see: https://www.westcastor.org/ and https://www.ausgestrahlt.de/blog/2023/10/12/atomm%C3%BCll-auf-abwegen/.

The recent emails obtained by SRS Watch and some other key documents are posted on the SRS Watch website:  https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/FOIA-German-document-list-on-SRS-Watch-Oct-23-2023.pdf.

Meanwhile, the lawsuit by SRS Watch and other non-profit groups in federal court in Columbia, SC demanding preparation of a “programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” (PEIS) by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for production of plutonium “pits” for new nuclear warheads continues.  In a October 19, 2023 website post - Lawyers for SRS Watch & Allies Deal Blow to DOE Challenge to Admission of Key Documents in Federal Lawsuit concerning New Plutonium “Pits” (Cores) for New Nuclear Warheads – the status of the case is explained:  https://srswatch.org/lawyers-for-srs-watch-allies-deal-blow-to-doe-challenge-to-admission-of-key-documents-in-federal-lawsuit-concerning-new-plutonium-pits-cores-for-new-nuclear-warheads/

###

1. DOE’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, successful ruling for SRS Watch in FOIA appeal, August 1, 2023: https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/FIA-23-0022-FOIA-appeal-order-August-1-2023.pdf

2. Two batches of emails obtained from the Savannah River Site via FOIA requests by SRS Watchsubsequent to the appeal victory concerning earlier “inadequate search”, September 11, 2023: 

https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SME-William-Bates-Emails-rcvd-Sep-11-2023.pdf

https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SME-Robert-Pierce-Emails-rcvd-Sep-11-2023.pdf

3. SRS initial response to SRS Watch FOIA request of September 15, 2023 related to involvement of private company Edlow International - was it formally or informally negotiating on behalf of DOE or not? https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SRO-2023-01811-F-Clements-first-letter-Sep-18-2023-edlow.pdf

By admin at Wed, 10/25/2023 - 01:55

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