NRC's Jaczko presses his case for 2012 budget

In an end of year meeting with reporters the Chairman explains what the agency plans to do next year

(Note to readers - this blog post has been updated to indicate the budget being discussed is the FY 2012 federal budget which began 10/01/11)

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko sat down with reporters from the mainstream media and the major wire services this week to discuss his agency's budget. He got lots of ink from it, metaphorically speaking, as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Associated Press wires all covered it.

There is just one problem with the pitch to the media. While they write the news, they don't write the appropriation language in Congress starting in the Republican led House who have, metaphorically speaking, a facsimile of his hide tacked up on a dartboard.

Critics of the highly visible NRC chairman point out he made himself a target being a former aide to Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) who's over-the-top anti-nuclear advocacy has a self-inflated importance that competes with the skyline hugging profile of Mt. Rushmore.

For example, in the middle of the revisions of the design certification of the Westinghouse AP1000, last May Jaczko went public with his complaints about it in an unprecedented press release.  Since then the reactor vendor appears to have addressed all the agency's objections.  It expects the NRC to issue the Final Rule before the end of 2011.  (U.S. NRC blog August 11, 2011)

Then last October he said in a speech at the National Press Club he was in "sympathy" with a contention filed by two dozen anti-nuclear groups to stop all NRC licensing activities, both new and renewals, until the agency had completed all its changes to regulatory requirements based on the Fukushima events, a process that could take years.  That may have been the idea, but reason prevailed and the NRC rejected the contention.

What's the hubub about the budget?

Jaczko told the news media this week that the NRC may slow down renewals of licenses for existing reactors though he also said that none would be forced to close as a result of this action. Instead, he said it would take longer for the regulatory agency to process the paperwork.

That's a bit of a stretch since Entergy's Indian Point has two reactors up for license renewal in 2013 and 2015 respectively.   New York Governor Andrew Cuomo actually might be happy about the possibility of a delay since he does better at funding raising from green groups when he has Indian Point to thump on the stump.  What would he do if the NRC was actually efficient and got the licenses out on time?

There are 10 reactors with their licenses under review and another dozen which will come in between 2012 and 2017.  Most of the nation's nuclear fleet have been relicensed including two of the oldest plants - Exelon's Oyster Creek in New Jersey and Entergy's Vermont Yankee.

Paying the piper

And it is expensive paperwork.  Agency engineers bill the nations nuclear utilities $273/hr for the privilege of having their applications reviewed for safety compliance.

More than 90% of the NRC's, or about $900 million, comes from industry fees not taxpayers. While the nuclear industry pays fees for regulatory reviews, only Congress can appropriate money for operations.  The payments from utilities go to the U.S. Treasury.

If utilities want their licenses on time, why, if they are paying for them, is the agency slowing things down? According to the NRC, there are 14 reactors with pending license renewals.  But Jaczko told the reporters at his round table event he has other priorities including implementing new regulatory requirements recommended by an NRC task force last July.

Another priority Jackzo plans to focus on is to tighten scrutiny of nuclear reactors with safety performance problems such as Browns Ferry which got a rare "red" safety notice for failing to detect a long standing equipment problem in its emergency cooling system.

Jaczko is also planning to pay more attention to First Energy's Perry plant in northeast Ohio which almost exposed four contract workers to a blast of radiation.  It is called a "near miss" and is as serious as an actual accident.  Then there is the luckless Ft. Calhoun power station on the Missouri River near Omaha, Neb., which is still closed following the flooding along the river last summer.

Jaczko is quick to point out he's not calling out a decline in safety performance among the nation's reactors, but he does warn about "complacency" and plans to work to overcome it.

The budget by the numbers

In a briefing document released to the media, the NRC said it is working in 2012 with about $29 million less than what it got in 2010.  Of the $29 million decrease, $20 million, or about two-thirds of the decrease, comes from licensing activities.

This shifting of resources takes place inside a budget that is being reduced, measured in constant dollars, from $1.07 billion in 2010 to $977 million in 2012.

Separately, the agency will spend $12.5 million more on oversight of construction of new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at Southern's Vogtle site in Georgia, Scana's V.C. Summer Station in South Carolina, and two reactors being completed by TVA - Watts Bar in Tennessee and Bellefonte on Alabama.

When asked by reporters about Jaczko's briefing, the nuclear industry appears to have taken the high road.  According to the Associated Press report, as published in the Washington Post, Tony Peitrangelo at NEI said his group "is in broad agreement" with the NRC on its response to Fukushima.  He said nuclear utilities are ready to adopt short-term measures including more equipment to deal with prolonged loss of off-site power.

Yucca not a pressing issue

Jaczko has been a target of House Republicans because he ended the NRC's review of the license application for the Yucca Mountain geologic repository  He said that he feels spent fuel can be safely stored at reactors in wet and eventually dry storage for up to 100 years.  That doesn't thrill the utilities who have multiple lawsuits against the federal government for having taken the money to build Yucca Mountain and then left them holding the spent fuel.

As many of his critics quickly point out, Jaczko is also a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) who has done everything in his power to insure that Yucca Mountain never opens.  In a nod to Reid's influence over the President's legislative agenda, the White House appointed a so-called Blue Ribbon Commission to look at alternatives for dealing with spent fuel.  Some wags call it the "do nothing until after 2012 commission" which apparently is also the strategy the election bound president has taken with a proposed oil pipeline from Canada to Texas.

The formula appears to be one which has House Republicans fuming.  Jaczko is doing what Sen. Reid wants him to do, and as long as Reid is happy, and is carrying legislative water buckets for the President in Congress, the White House could care less what else Jaczko does at the NRC. So while the House can put language in the appropriation bill reflecting their annoyances, it is likely to come out on the Senate side and disappear in conference committee. The good news is that in an election year the odds are in favor of Congress actually producing appropriation bills.

What to do about the NRC Chief's sleight of hand?

My friend and fellow nuclear blogger Rod Adams thinks the House Appropriations Committee ought to hold Jaczko's feet to the fire and write specific language telling him how to spend the agency's money. That's a good start, but there is more Congress can do.

If Congress is serious about energy policy it will fund the NRC in a way that promotes safety through licensing and oversight and add money to the agency to cover Fukushima-related recommendations.  Robbing money from the utility fee pool to pay for regulatory improvements isn't going to make anyone happy and it will have an overall corrosive effect on the agency's effectiveness and credibility.

As long as we're adding to a wish list, I would also ask Congress to change the reimbursement requirement for small modular reactors, e.g., those with less than 300 MW in electrical generating capability.  If this nation is going to be competitive on a global scale, we have to do more to get innovative technology out the door and not keep it bottled up inside the DC beltway.

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Good news about nuclear energy – December 2011

Another report in a continuing series in the post-Fukushima era

Plans for development of new nuclear reactors continue to emerge, or change from the past, as a result of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. This  trend is visible in China where the government is getting ready to start approving new reactor projects following a safety review.

Other southeast Asian nations are also making plans or looking at the potential for nuclear energy. Chief among them is Vietnam with expectations of building as many as eight new reactors.

India is emerging as a major player in the business of building new reactors despite protests from opposition parties.  New reactors will go forward at Jaitapur and Koondankulam.

And there is lots of other positive news about nuclear energy.

Read the complete story exclusively at CoolHandNuke online now.

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81st Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

Fermi reactor concept -
Image courtesy of Will Davis at Atomic Power Review

If you want to hear the voice of the nuclear renaissance, the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is where to find it.

Past editions have been hosted at Next Big Future. Yes Vermont Yankee, Atomic Energy Review, Canadian Energy Issues, and CoolHandNuke, as well as several other popular nuclear energy blogs.

The publication of the Carnival each week is part of a commitment by the leading pro-nuclear bloggers in North America that we will speak with a collective voice on the issue of the value of nuclear energy. While we each have our own point of view, we agree that the promise of peaceful uses of the atom remains viable in our own time and for the future.

If you have a pro-nuclear energy blog, and would like to host an edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang at Next Big Future to get on the rotation.

This Week's Carnival

Some fish story

At Yes Vermont Yankee Meredith Angwin finds another reason to distrust the Associated Press when it comes to reporting on nuclear energy topics. 

AP reported that Vermont Yankee "released" strontium without including the quantities released.  She notes that anti-nuclear bias may be part of a pattern at AP, and quotes Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) criticisms of national-level four part series of AP articles on nuclear subjects.

The CJR article published last September titled, "A Frustrating AP Series on Nuclear Safety," carried a subhead which captures what's wrong with the wire service's reporting on nuclear energy.  It said, "the industry’s blunder-buss response doesn’t help; public left confused"

But later CJR found more reasons to be concerned about AP. In November it wrote that AP's coverage of the potential for cancer from radiation releases at Fukushima was more scary than factual.

December a busy month for nuclear energy

At Atomic Power Review Will Davis lists all the 'firsts" that took place in December in the history of nuclear energy.  They include the Chicago Pile and the generation of electricity at EBR-1 in Idaho.

He has some interesting technical details about Enrico Fermi's work at the Chicago site where a sustained chain reaction first took place December 2, 1942.  Along with good story telling, Davis also has some wonderful graphics from the era.

The real cost of nuclear weapons

At the Nuclear Diner Cheryl Rofer writes that if you want to account for what nuclear weapons have cost the country since they were invented during World War II, you would have to include the damage to the environment and people’s health from poor judgements about worker conditions and waste disposal, the work that has gone into development of treaties to control them, and today’s monitoring of other nations that hold them or may be trying to get them.

Rofer notes that Stephen Schwartz, most recently with Deepti Choubey, has tried to reckon up that full cost. That number is useful for a great many things, among them ways to consider what nuclear weapons might cost us in the future and how we might deal with those costs.

Three from Next Big Future

Brain Wang at Next Big Future is one of the most productive bloggers I know cranking out interesting stuff every day.  Here are links to three of his most recent efforts.

• Shadow war against Iran nuclear program

• Power generation costs in China

• Czech, Australian thorium molten salt project has 50 researchers

Future of nuclear safety in Japan

At Nuke Power Talk Gail Marcus casts a critical eye on the future of nuclear energy safety regulation in Japan.  She profiles an article posted on-line by Professor Yoshiaki Oka of Japan identifying some of the same concerns that have been raised in her previous blogs, as well as by others in the West, about the need for changes to the Japanese nuclear regulatory process in the wake of Fukushima.  She points as well to other experts who are looking at these same issues, calling it a growing chorus of concern. 

What's a subsidy?

At ANS Nuclear Cafe Jim Hopf offers a must-read explanation of the differences between renewable and nuclear loan guarantees, what is a subsidy and what is not, energy market failures, external costs, and the possible impacts of the Solyndra "scandal" on America's nuclear future.

Off-the-mark at Limerick?

At Idaho Samizdat Dan Yurman analyzes the details of a contention filed by NRDC against license renewal for Exelon's Limerick reactor near Philadelphia.  In talking with NRDC and Exelon, as well as an independent nuclear engineer, he finds NRDC may be attacking an element of the license renewal that doesn't matter, at least as far as the NRC is concerned. 

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Not enough buckets for Helen Caldicott

The New York Times puts her in the batter box, but her wild swings at nuclear energy produce a strike out

In the world of baseball, a batter who steps away from home plate with his leading foot, instead of a straight-ahead stride, is said to "put their foot in the bucket."

It is also generally a slang or idiomatic phrase that means clumsiness or cluelessness which can and often does lead to wrong-headed action.

Such is the case of Helen Calidott, MD, a long-time advocate against the use of nuclear energy.  She founded Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and remains active on behalf of the organization.

In an OP ED published 2 Dec 2011 by the International Herald Tribune, the Paris, France, based print and online outlet for the New York Times, Dr. Caldicott makes so many errors in her claims against nuclear energy that if she were in a nine inning baseball game, there would not be enough buckets to hold them.

Caldicott complains in her New York Times OP ED that . . .

"Nuclear advocates often paint those who oppose them as Luddites who are afraid of, or don’t understand, technology, or as hysterics who exaggerate the dangers of nuclear power."  

Frankly, that describes her very well.  Put another way, Caldicott paints the world green with fear, uncertainty, and doubt giving a bad name to the environmental movement. Here are the examples which make that point.

Chernobyl did not kill one million

Let's start with her claim that one million people died as a result of the Chernobyl accident.  Caldicott cites as her source a discredited study published by the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS).  The Academy, when advised of the lack of scientific rigor in the materials it published, was so embarrassed it returned the copyright to the authors and removed the work from its website.

Nuclear blogger Rod Adams has the devastating details of how the study came to public attention and its rapid fall from grace.

There can be no question that Caldicott is aware that the NYAS report has been determined to be incredible and useless as a scientific reference. In 2009 the NYAS acknowledged a published a review pointing out the study, sponsored by Greenepeace, contained "hasty impressions and ignorant conclusions".

By citing the discredited Chernobyl report in the pages of the New York Times, she is deliberately misleading the newspaper's readers.  Relying on the NYAS report for the truth of casualties at Chernobyl is like stepping on a banana peel and expecting to retain your stride.

If you are willing to read real science, the web pages of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) contain a wealth of information on the original accident and a retrospective 25 years later.  As a member of the ANS Public Information Committee, I was a contributor to the ANS materials on the 25th anniversary of the accident. The work was guided by a technical team of nuclear scientists and engineers.

Fukushima fairy tales

Fukushima radiation map ~
Source: US. DOE

There are no dangerous cesium-137 hot spots in Tokyo from the Fukushima reactor site.  The Japanese government and the U.S. Department of Energy, and other agencies have made detailed maps (Nature 11 Nov 2011) of hot spots, especially those that would be considered dangerous.  See for instance this interactive map published in the science journal Nature last September.

Many thousands of people are NOT living in highly radioactive areas around Fukushima. The Japanese government evacuated over 140,000 people in a 20 km radius around the plant. (New York Times map of evacuation zones 16 March 2011).

And the news media did not suppress information about the accident.  With the speed of the Internet, the coverage was global and unceasing.  TEPCO, the Japanese government, and even U.S. government spokesmen, made mistakes in the way they communicated information, but errors in technical information did not stay uncorrected for long.

For instance, an assessment by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the spent fuel pool at Fukushima unit 4 was uncovered, and releasing radiation, was later retracted by the chairman of that agency.  The reason is that video images and tests of water chemistry showed the spent fuel remained undamaged and was always covered with water to keep it cool.

Why nations build nuclear reactors

Caldicott claims that nations build nuclear reactors because propaganda from the industry pulls the wool over their eyes.  The facts, not fiction, are much more reliable as an explanation.

• India, despite the work of political opposition parties, will move ahead with new construction of nuclear reactors at Jaitapur (Areva) and Koondankulam ( Atomstroyexport) because it needs baseload power to drive its economy. India's electrified railroads are planning to have their own dedicated network of nuclear reactors to power the trains.
• Japan is less than 50% self-sufficient in terms of food. To pay for food imports, it must produce high value manufactured goods for export like cars, electronics, and industrial machinery including large forgings for nuclear pressure vessels.  Japan must turn its shuttered reactors back on or it will starve.
• China is shifting its investments from Generation II to Generation III nuclear reactors with passive safety systems. It is making these investments because it cannot power its economy with coal.  China is expected to build 25-30 GW of new reactor generation capacity by the end of this decade.
• The U.K. will build 19 GWe of new nuclear power plants because the North Sea gas has a finite shelf life and its current fleet of reactors are reaching the end of their service lives.
• The Czech Republic will build as many as five near reactors worth {e}21 billion - two at Temelin, one on Slovenia, and two more at other sites.  Much of the power will be sold to Germany and Italy which have decided not to use reactors within their borders.  Hypocrisy anyone?
• In the U.S. by the end of this decade there will be six new reactors producing electricity in the southeast - two in Georgia, two in South Carolina, one in Alabama, and one in Tennessee.  By 2020, or earlier, at least two U.S. firms will have NRC licenses to build small modular reactors opening up new domestic and international markets.
• In the Middle East the UAE will build four new reactors supplied by South Korea.  Saudi Arabia has announced plans for 16 new reactors with the tender for the first units to be released soon. If the center of the global oil industry thinks nuclear industry is good idea, exactly where does that put Caldicott's logic. It's back in the bucket.

Terrestial energy

In the same issue of the New York Times, the editors ran another OP ED this one from Nathan Myhrvold who is driving the development of the TerraPower reactor design. Funding comes in part from the Foundation established by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates. 

Gates is putting up his money because he believes energy is a key to sustainable development and that it cannot be achieved solely with solar energy or wind power.

Readers may also benefit from reading Myhrvold's essay which explains the concept of relative risk, e.g., it is more dangerous to drive to the airport than to fly on the plane.  Myhrvold writes that the harm done by fossil fuels to the planet, in terms of pollution and greenhouse gases, "pose a greater threat than the darkest nuclear accident scenario."

Caldicott passes on mentioning global warming or greenhouses gases in her campaign against nuclear energy.

Calm reason makes sense. Over-wrought emotion does not.  

Video - absolutely putting your foot in the bucket

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Davis-Besse gets green light to restart

The NRC said the cracks in the shield building are not a threat to safety

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a statement Dec 2 it has determined that it is safe to re-stasrt the Davis Besse nuclear power plant located in Oak Harbor, Ohio, 40 miles southeast of Toledo.

The NRC said the operators of the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Corp. (FENOC) "have provided reasonable assurance that the shield building is capable of performing its safety functions and that the utility can proceed with restarting the plant." 

The NRC said its independent assessment "evaluated a wide range of information such as technical details ranging from the size of the cracks, the utility’s sampling and testing of the concrete in the building to determine the extent of the cracks, and its structural analysis."

The background to the issue is that on Oct. 10 the NRC was informed by FENOC that while conducting work to replace the Davis-Besse reactor vessel head its workers identified cracks in the shield building. The shield building is a 2.5 foot thick reinforced concrete building that surrounds a 1.5 inch thick steel containment vessel that encloses the reactor. The two buildings are separated by a 4.5 foot space.

The NRC said in a letter to the utility it must continuously monitor cracks in the shield build to insure they do not impact safety.

There is additional news coverage, including the usual anti-nuclear roundup, in the Toledo Blade.

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NRDC challenges Limerick license

The environmental group has filed a contention saying the safety analysis is outdated

The Natural Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC), one of the nation’s leading environmental groups, told the NRC Nov 28 that the re-licensing application for Exelon’s Limerick nuclear power station has an out-of-date safety analysis.

The petition filed by NRDC challenges the relicensing process on the grounds that Exelon (NYSE:EXC) did not update a 1980s era safety analysis and that the NRC granted the utility an “inappropriate exemption” from the requirement to do one now.

Limerick is composed of two 1,200 MW BWR reactors. Unit 1 entered revenue service in 1986 and Unit 2 in 1990. Their NRC licenses expire in 2024 and 2029 respectively. The plants are located 21 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

Matthew McKinzie, Ph.D., a nuclear energy specialist for NRDC, (left) told this blog . . .

“All U.S. nuclear plants are required to conduct a critical safety review known as a Severe Accident Mitigation Alternatives, or “SAMA,” analysis to determine potentially cost-beneficial operational safety upgrades at nuclear plants. The last analysis for Limerick, completed in 1989, relied upon population data from 1980 and therefore didn’t take into account evacuation planning and the health risk from radiation exposure for up to 1.4 million additional people now living downwind in the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Newark metropolitan area.”

He called the original SAMA “outdated” because it ignores population growth in the region. He cites a statement in NRDC’s press release about the contention.

“Some common sense planning is needed here. What was acceptable in 1989 is not good enough for the next 30 to 40 years.”

Not so fast says Exelon

Exelon disputes this view. April Schilpp, a spokesperson for Exelon, told this blog in an emailed statement that Limerick performed the required safety analysis in 1989 for initial licensing.

“The purpose of the analysis is to determine if there is cost effective mitigation for the environmental effects from a severe accident. It is required to be performed once, and Limerick, Watts Bar and Comanche Peak performed this analysis as part of initial licensing because of a court ruling in 1989. Since all other licensing was completed, the NRC required the analysis to be completed for other reactors during license renewal.”

She points out that NRC regulations require the analysis be performed for license renewal unless it was performed for initial licensing.

“We verified that there is no new and significant information that would alter the conclusion that the environmental effects remain low. Therefore no additional mitigation is necessary.”

And Exelon isn’t happy about the contention in general. Schilpp writes in an email, “The NRDC petition disregards everything else Exelon has done over the years to ensure safety and operational excellence.“

NEPA challenge at the heart of the contention

But there’s more from NRDC. McKinzie said NRDC is aware of the exemption for Limerick from the NRC for doing a new SAMA.

So why file a contention on these grounds?

McKinzie says the exemption is in conflict with the intent of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). It appears to be a question of what is the “green footprint” of the plant.

“We want a ‘full-up’ and completely new SAMA. We think that new and materially significant information would result from one. Our contention is based on the plausible significance of this information,” McKinzie said.

He goes on to list seven reasons why the NRC should require a new SAMA for Limerick.

1. additional accident scenarios analyzed for BWRs;
2. real world information regarding reactor core damage frequency;
3. population within 50 miles Limerick;
4. economic consequences from accident scenarios at Limerick;
5. evacuation speed assumed during accident scenarios at Limerick; and
6. meteorology at Limerick.

Mc Kinzie says that “taken individually and especially in combination, this new information would plausibly cause a materially different result in the SAMA analysis for Limerick. This is why we think the current SAMDA analysis is incomplete.”

Again, Exelon isn’t buying it and not just because it wants to save money in the relicensing process.

“A great deal of investment has also been made to keep that analysis up to date since then, so it’s also not an “inadequate” study,” Schilpp says.

“In fact the Environmental Report itself (part of the application) lists the results of eight other safety analyses that were performed 1992 through 2009. Among other advances, these safety analyses show plant safety has improved over time (the calculated Core Damage Frequency (CDF) is lower),” Schilpp said.

Would a new SAMA make a difference?

With this back and forth from NRDC and Exelon in play, I turned to an expert third party for an opinion on whether a new SAMA would make a difference. This engineer, who also holds a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, and has more than three decades of operational experience, told this blog via email;

A new SAMA analysis will basically be just be "more work for consultant firms"

While this sounds cynical, he said a new document would not be likely to produce much new information usable in day to day operations, “because it looks at additional hardware and tries to figure out if it has any additional benefits."

Does this mean NRDC has misunderstood the use of a SAMA? The consultant points out they may get it but also may be off the mark. He points out the knowledge of severe accident phenomenon has dramatically improved from what existed in the 1980's era and many of the safety issues which were addressed then are now recognized as obsolete.

“Some risks are reduced because of better knowledge of basic physics.”

"Some of the features incorporated voluntarily by the industry - such as hard pipe vents from the BWR suppression pool - have a huge impact on risk reduction. This would allow one reasonably sized fire pump and an open suppression pool vent to remove all decay heat from the core indefinitely."

The engineer concludes a number of major improvements have been added due to voluntary initiatives and for security measures. These include additional emergency diesel generators and fuel supplies.

He says, "It is difficult to see that re-evaluations in 2011 could come up any different."

The engineer is not quoted by name at his request due to contractual obligations with another nuclear utility which is not Exelon.

Watchdog group seeks leverage

NRDC’s contention has to pass some tests before it has an impact on the relicensing process for the plant. Even so, NRDC has to convince the NRC is has standing to file the contention and that it has raised a legitimate issue. The legal back-and-forth will take time so it could be mid-winter before the dust settles on this issue.

Exelon filed for relicensing in June of 2011 with an NRC calendar indicating a decision as early as April 2013. The plant license is good until 2024 so even if NRDC prevails on this issue, it won’t result in shutting down the reactor. Exelon has until the end of this month to file a legal response with the NRC.

What’s clear is that NRDC is seeking to overturn the exemption the NRC granted to Exelon. Whether a new SAMA would make a difference in over all plant safety isn’t clear based on a consultant’s expert observations. Then again, watchdog groups like NRDC seek leverage where they can find it so this may be an issue worth watching.

On the Web

• Exelon information on Limerick power station
• NRDC’s legal filings

http://docs.nrdc.org/nuclear/files/nuc_11112801a.pdf
http://docs.nrdc.org/nuclear/files/nuc_11112801b.pdf
http://docs.nrdc.org/nuclear/files/nuc_11112801c.pdf

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MIT nuclear fuel expert has new economic ideas to deal with it

Locating all back-end facilities at the same site will increase community acceptance because of job creation

A nationally recognized expert says that collocating a reprocessing plant with a waste disposal facility can improve the economics, efficiency, and public acceptance of both.

Charles Forsberg, executive director of the MIT Nuclear Fuel Cycle Study, (right) writes in the November 2011 issue of the Amercian Nuclear Society’s Nuclear News magazine that a new business model is needed to manage spent nuclear fuel and repositories for long-term storage of highly radioactive waste.

In an exclusive interview with Forsberg at the ANS Winter Meeting held in November in Washington, D.C., he said that there is an opportunity to borrow from the business model of an airport authority.

For instance, an airport authority owns the runways, and collocated with them are public and private airline terminals and freight handling warehouses. All of these facilities, which generate user fees for the airport authority, benefit from collocation with the high-value runways.

The issue related to spent fuel, Forsberg said, is whether the Secretary of Energy’s Blue Ribbon Commission asked the right questions. A key issue is how to make a spent fuel repository, and collocated reprocessing center, an attractive economic asset for a community that hosts them. Such a strategy would also save 30 percent of the costs of building the plants at separate locations, according to Forsberg.

Read the complete story exclusively at the ANS Nuclear Cafe online now.