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Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island

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NRC Announces Opportunity to Request Hearing on Vogtle Unit 4 Notice of Intended Operation

Nuclear Regulatory Commission - News Release
No: 22-005 February 2, 2022
CONTACT: Scott Burnell, 301-415-8200
 
NRC Announces Opportunity to Request Hearing on Vogtle Unit 4 Notice of Intended Operation
 
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published in the Federal Register a notice of opportunity to request a limited scope adjudicatory hearing regarding Southern Nuclear Operating Co.’s notice to load nuclear fuel into the Vogtle Unit 4 reactor in Georgia, beginning in September. The company has also submitted notifications describing the completion of inspections and other actions required before the fuel load.
 
Petitions requesting a hearing must be filed by April 4, by anyone with interests that might be affected by Vogtle Unit 4’s proposed operation who wants to participate as a party in the proceeding. This hearing opportunity is limited to petitions regarding the licensee’s conformance with the acceptance criteria in the combined license for the facility. Petitions requesting a hearing in this matter must show which acceptance criteria have not been or will not be met, as well as why failure to meet the criteria would prevent the NRC from having reasonable assurance that public health and safety will be adequately protected. Environmental contentions and other issues outside the scope of the proceeding will not be considered. The Commission will determine whether to grant the hearing request.
 
Information on Southern Nuclear’s completion of the required inspections and other actions, without proprietary details, is available on the NRC’s website. The NRC will consider this information when making a finding later this year on whether Vogtle Unit 4 can begin operating.
 
By admin at Thu, 02/03/2022 - 01:20

Energy Solutions indirect license transfer application

Eric,
 
As we discussed yesterday, the publicly available Energy Solutions indirect license application submittal package is in ADAMS at accession number ML21344A114.  I should point out that the cover letter for the application identifies two other contacts besides Mr. van Noordennen that you might try to gain access to the SUNSI information provided with the application.  Let me know if you have any trouble accessing the documents in ADAMS.
 
Best Regards,
 
Jack D. Parrott
Senior Project Manager
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission

By admin at Thu, 02/03/2022 - 01:07

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3 - Acceptance for Review of Relief Request Associated with Reactor Pressure Vessel N-16A Nozzle Repair (EPID L-2022-LLR-0006)

ADAMS Accession No. ML22024A185
 
ADAMS Hyperlink:
https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML22024A185
 
Using Web-based ADAMS, select “Advanced Search”
Under “Property,” select “Accession Number”
Under “Value,” enter the Accession Number
Click Search

By admin at Thu, 02/03/2022 - 00:57

Three Mile Island Unit-2 Proposes to Transfer License to 'Foreign Passive Investors'; Intervention to be Filed, (1/28/22)

Letter enclosing Federal Register Notice on Consideration of the Application for 
Approval of Indirect Transfer of Licenses held by EnergySolutions, LLC
Posted to FRN on 1/21/2022
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/01/21/2022-01175/zion-nuclear-power-station-units-1-and-2-three-mile-island-nuclear-station-unit-2-la-crosse-boiling
 
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) received 
and is considering approval of a license transfer application 
filed by Energy Solutions, LLC (EnergySolutions ) on 
December 7, 2021. The application seeks NRC approval 
of the indirect transfer of Facility Operating License 
Nos. DPR-39 and DPR-48 for Zion Nuclear Power 
Station (Zion), Units 1 and 2, respectively, and the 
general license for the Zion independent spent fuel 
storage installation (ISFSI); Possession Only License 
No. DPR-73 for Three Mile Island Nuclear Station,
Unit 2 (TMI-2); Possession Only License No. DPR-45 
for La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor (La Crosse) and 
the general license for the La Crosse ISFSI; Radioactive 
Materials License No. 39-35044-01; and Export 
Licenses XW010/04 and XW018/01 from the 
current principal shareholders of the Energy 
Solutions parent company Rockwell Holdco, 
Inc. (Rockwell) and other investors to a 
majority ownership by TriArtisan ES Partners, 
LLC  (TriArtisan). The application contains 
sensitive unclassified non-safeguards information 
(SUNSI).
 
 
TMI-2 Solutions is a wholly owned subsidiary 
of EnergySolutions, which in turn is a privately held 
company whose shares are directly owned by Rockwell 
Holdco, Inc. (''Rockwell").
 
Rockwell is 57% owned primarily by a number of
 affiliated passive investment funds controlled by Energy 
Capital Partners GP II, LP (the "Controlling Partner"): 
(i) Energy Capital Partners II, LP; (ii) Energy Capital 
Partners II-A, LP; (iii) Energy Capital Partners II-B, LP;
 (iv) Energy Capital Partners II-C (Direct IP), LP; and (v) 
Energy Capital Partners I-D, LP (collectively, the ''ECP II 
Partnerships")...Approximately 37% of the equity in all 
of the ECP II Partnerships is held by Foreign Passive
 Investors. Approximately 28% of the equity in the
 TriArtisan Entities is held by Foreign Passive
 Investors (Application, p. 4) Foreign trustees 
“can make foreign investments, including investments
to be maintained abroad; provided, however, that such 
authority is limited to those foreign jurisdictions in which
the Trustee has selected a foreign custodian in accordance 
with Section 4.6 - hereof.”
By admin at Fri, 01/28/2022 - 13:05

NRC Issues Confirmatory Order, $50,000 Civil Penalty to HDI Over Security-Related Violations at Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant

Nuclear Regulatory Commission - News Release
No: I-22-002 January 26, 2022
CONTACT: Diane Screnci, 610-337-5330
Neil Sheehan, 610-337-5331
 
NRC Issues Confirmatory Order, $50,000 Civil Penalty to HDI Over Security-Related Violations at Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant
 
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a confirmatory order to Holtec Decommissioning International LLC following an Alternative Dispute Resolution mediation session regarding security-related violations at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant.
 
HDI has agreed on a series of corrective actions that the NRC will confirm during upcoming inspections at the Lacey Township (Ocean County), New Jersey, plant. Following completion of the corrective actions, the NRC will issue a civil penalty of $50,000 for the violations, which is a reduction from the base civil penalty of $150,000.
 
“This agreement will result in a number of significant actions that can be expected to improve the security programs not only at Oyster Creek but also at the other nuclear plants being decommissioned by HDI,” said NRC Region I Deputy Administrator Raymond Lorson.
 
The corrective actions are intended to address two violations and related performance aspects found during an NRC investigation at Oyster Creek concluded on March 11, 2021. During that investigation, the agency determined that a now-former security superintendent, who was also assigned armorer duties, deliberately failed to properly perform required annual material-condition inspections of response unit rifles and falsified related records.
 
The mediation session was conducted on Oct. 14, 2021. Under the ADR process, mediation is facilitated by a neutral third party who has no decision-making authority but assists the NRC and a licensee in reaching an agreement when differences exist regarding an enforcement action.
 
Corrective actions agreed to by HDI include making the corporate security director a standalone position; the use of external experts to conduct independent assessments of security at Oyster Creek and other Holtec-owned decommissioning nuclear power plants; and the implementation of training and communications related to the issue.
 
A copy of the confirmatory order will be made available in the NRC’s electronic documents system, ADAMS.
 
The NRC will be issuing a Severity Level III Notice of Violation to the former superintendent.
 
These enforcement actions are separate and distinct from the NRC’s issuance of a $150,000 civil penalty to HDI on Dec. 22, 2021, for other security-related violations at Oyster Creek.
 
By admin at Fri, 01/28/2022 - 12:47

NRC Schedules a Regulatory Conference with Energy Harbor Nuclear Corp.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission - News Release
No: III-22-001 January 26, 2022
Contact: Viktoria Mitlyng, 630-829-9662 Prema Chandrathil, 630-829-9663
 
NRC Schedules a Regulatory Conference with Energy Harbor Nuclear Corp.
 
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a regulatory conference with officials from Energy Harbor Nuclear Corp. on Feb.1, beginning at 9 a.m. Central time, to discuss the risk significance of a potential greater than green finding identified by the NRC during a special inspection at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station.
 
Due to COVID-19 conditions, public participation will be via teleconference only. Meeting attendees will be able to listen to the meeting and ask questions following the business portion of the meeting by calling 1-301-576-2978, passcode 357032014#.
 
The purpose of this regulatory conference is for the NRC and Energy Harbor officials to discuss the risk significance of a preliminary greater than green finding before the agency makes its final significance determination. The finding involves the company’s failure to establish preventive maintenance procedures for diesel generator switch contacts, resulting in the diesel generator’s failure to start as designed during a routine test. This apparent violation was discussed in the Dec. 16 NRC inspection report.
 
A decision on the final safety significance of the apparent violation or any NRC actions will not be made at the meeting.
 
By admin at Fri, 01/28/2022 - 12:44

NDCA/Spin Co RTK Requests, (2/24/22)

By admin at Tue, 01/25/2022 - 11:47

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3 - Information Request for the Cyber Security Baseline Inspection; Notification to Perform Inspection 05000277/2022403 and 05000278/2022403

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3 - Information Request for the Cyber Security Baseline Inspection; Notification to Perform Inspection 05000277/2022403 and 05000278/2022403

ADAMS Accession No.  ML22021A569
 
By admin at Tue, 01/25/2022 - 11:15

IEEFA U.S.: Price tag for new reactors at Vogtle Plant in Georgia climbs past $30 billion - Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis

https://below2c.org/2022/01/nuclear-is-not-a-climate-change-solution/

nukes not answer.jpg

This post features a statement issued by former US, German and French experts in nuclear regulation and radiation protection. Dr. Gregory Jaczko, Professor Wolfgang Renneberg, Dr. Bernard Laponche and Dr. Paul Dorfman authored Nuclear is not a practicable means to combat climate change which is reproduced below.

Nuclear is Not a Climate Solution

The climate is running hot. Evolving knowledge of climate sensitivity and polar ice melt-rate makes clear that sea-level rise is ramping, along with destructive storm, storm surge, severe precipitation and flooding, not forgetting wildfire. With mounting concern and recognition over the speed and pace of the low carbon energy transition that’s needed, nuclear has been reframed as a partial response to the threat of global heating. But at the heart of this are questions about whether nuclear could help with the climate crisis, whether nuclear is economically viable, what are the consequences of nuclear accidents, what to do with the waste, and whether there’s a place for nuclear within the swiftly expanding renewable energy evolution.

As key experts who have worked on the front-line of the nuclear issue, we’ve all involved at the highest governmental nuclear regulatory and radiation protection levels in the US, Germany, France and UK. In this context, we consider it our collective responsibility to comment on the main issue: Whether nuclear could play a significant role as a strategy against climate change.

The central message, repeated again and again, that a new generation of nuclear will be clean, safe, smart and cheap, is fiction. The reality is that nuclear is neither clean, safe or smart, but a very complex technology with the potential to cause significant harm.

Nuclear isn’t cheap, but extremely costly. Perhaps most importantly nuclear is just not part of any feasible strategy that could counter climate change. To make a relevant contribution to global power generation, up to more than ten thousand new reactors would be required, depending on reactor design.

In short, nuclear as strategy against climate change is:

  • Too costly in absolute terms to make a relevant contribution to global power production;
  • More expensive than renewable energy in terms of energy production and CO2 mitigation, even taking into account costs of grid management tools like energy storage associated with renewables roll-out;
  • Too costly and risky for financial market investment, and therefore dependent on very large public subsidies and loan guarantees;
  • Unsustainable due to the unresolved problem of very long-lived radioactive waste;
  • Financially unsustainable as no economic institution is prepared to insure against the full potential cost, environmental and human impacts of accidental radiation release – with the majority of those very significant costs being borne by the public;
  • Militarily hazardous since newly promoted reactor designs increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation;
  • Inherently risky due to unavoidable cascading accidents from human error, internal faults, and external impacts; vulnerability to climate-driven sea-level rise, storm, storm surge, inundation and flooding hazard, resulting in international economic impacts;
  • Subject to too many unresolved technical and safety problems associated with newer unproven concepts, including ‘Advanced’ and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs);
  • Too unwieldy and complex to create an efficient industrial regime for reactor construction and operation processes within the intended build-time and scope needed for climate change mitigation;
  • Unlikely to make a relevant contribution to necessary climate change mitigation needed by the 2030’s due to nuclear’s impracticably lengthy development and construction time-lines, and the overwhelming construction costs of the very great volume of reactors that would be needed to make a difference.

Gordon Edwards is a Canadian a Canadian scientist and nuclear expert—and also a self-declared nuclear sceptic—who submitted the following response to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change consultation that ended on January 21:

Source: Ontario Clean Energy Alliance

New nuclear reactors currently proposed are too slow and too costly to make a significant difference in reducing carbon emissions by 2030. Wind and solar are cheaper and faster to deploy and are also field tested, unlike any proposed new reactors. Renewables can make an impressive contribution by 2030, and more so by 2050, with widespread deployment. New nuclear can contribute very little before 2030, especially since the proposed nuclear designs are first-of-a-kind prototypes subject to unanticipated delays and cost escalations. — Gordon Edwards

More on the authors of the communique:

Dr. Greg Jaczko, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Prof. Wolfgang Renneberg, former Head of the Reactor Safety, Radiation Protection and Nuclear Waste, Federal Environment Ministry, Germany.

Dr. Bernard Laponche, former Director General, French Agency for Energy Management, former Advisor to French Minister of Environment, Energy and Nuclear Safety.

Dr. Paul Dorfman, former Secretary UK Govt. Committee Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters.

By admin at Tue, 01/25/2022 - 10:10

IEEFA U.S.: Price tag for new reactors at Vogtle Plant in Georgia climbs past $30 billion - Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis

https://below2c.org/2022/01/nuclear-is-not-a-climate-change-solution/

nukes not answer.jpg

This post features a statement issued by former US, German and French experts in nuclear regulation and radiation protection. Dr. Gregory Jaczko, Professor Wolfgang Renneberg, Dr. Bernard Laponche and Dr. Paul Dorfman authored Nuclear is not a practicable means to combat climate change which is reproduced below.

Nuclear is Not a Climate Solution

The climate is running hot. Evolving knowledge of climate sensitivity and polar ice melt-rate makes clear that sea-level rise is ramping, along with destructive storm, storm surge, severe precipitation and flooding, not forgetting wildfire. With mounting concern and recognition over the speed and pace of the low carbon energy transition that’s needed, nuclear has been reframed as a partial response to the threat of global heating. But at the heart of this are questions about whether nuclear could help with the climate crisis, whether nuclear is economically viable, what are the consequences of nuclear accidents, what to do with the waste, and whether there’s a place for nuclear within the swiftly expanding renewable energy evolution.

As key experts who have worked on the front-line of the nuclear issue, we’ve all involved at the highest governmental nuclear regulatory and radiation protection levels in the US, Germany, France and UK. In this context, we consider it our collective responsibility to comment on the main issue: Whether nuclear could play a significant role as a strategy against climate change.

The central message, repeated again and again, that a new generation of nuclear will be clean, safe, smart and cheap, is fiction. The reality is that nuclear is neither clean, safe or smart, but a very complex technology with the potential to cause significant harm.

Nuclear isn’t cheap, but extremely costly. Perhaps most importantly nuclear is just not part of any feasible strategy that could counter climate change. To make a relevant contribution to global power generation, up to more than ten thousand new reactors would be required, depending on reactor design.

In short, nuclear as strategy against climate change is:

  • Too costly in absolute terms to make a relevant contribution to global power production;
  • More expensive than renewable energy in terms of energy production and CO2 mitigation, even taking into account costs of grid management tools like energy storage associated with renewables roll-out;
  • Too costly and risky for financial market investment, and therefore dependent on very large public subsidies and loan guarantees;
  • Unsustainable due to the unresolved problem of very long-lived radioactive waste;
  • Financially unsustainable as no economic institution is prepared to insure against the full potential cost, environmental and human impacts of accidental radiation release – with the majority of those very significant costs being borne by the public;
  • Militarily hazardous since newly promoted reactor designs increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation;
  • Inherently risky due to unavoidable cascading accidents from human error, internal faults, and external impacts; vulnerability to climate-driven sea-level rise, storm, storm surge, inundation and flooding hazard, resulting in international economic impacts;
  • Subject to too many unresolved technical and safety problems associated with newer unproven concepts, including ‘Advanced’ and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs);
  • Too unwieldy and complex to create an efficient industrial regime for reactor construction and operation processes within the intended build-time and scope needed for climate change mitigation;
  • Unlikely to make a relevant contribution to necessary climate change mitigation needed by the 2030’s due to nuclear’s impracticably lengthy development and construction time-lines, and the overwhelming construction costs of the very great volume of reactors that would be needed to make a difference.

Gordon Edwards is a Canadian a Canadian scientist and nuclear expert—and also a self-declared nuclear sceptic—who submitted the following response to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change consultation that ended on January 21:

Source: Ontario Clean Energy Alliance

New nuclear reactors currently proposed are too slow and too costly to make a significant difference in reducing carbon emissions by 2030. Wind and solar are cheaper and faster to deploy and are also field tested, unlike any proposed new reactors. Renewables can make an impressive contribution by 2030, and more so by 2050, with widespread deployment. New nuclear can contribute very little before 2030, especially since the proposed nuclear designs are first-of-a-kind prototypes subject to unanticipated delays and cost escalations. — Gordon Edwards

More on the authors of the communique:

Dr. Greg Jaczko, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Prof. Wolfgang Renneberg, former Head of the Reactor Safety, Radiation Protection and Nuclear Waste, Federal Environment Ministry, Germany.

Dr. Bernard Laponche, former Director General, French Agency for Energy Management, former Advisor to French Minister of Environment, Energy and Nuclear Safety.

Dr. Paul Dorfman, former Secretary UK Govt. Committee Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters.

By admin at Tue, 01/25/2022 - 10:10

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