The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission snuck out a major decision on the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend. Its generic study of whether or not to require the expedited transfer of "spent nuclear fuel" (irradiated nuclear fuel rods, highly radioactive waste) out of vulnerable storage pools will be unceremoniusly ended, with no requirement to unload pools into dry cask storage. The study was undertaken as part of NRC's Fukushima "lessons learned" process, created by former NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko in the immediate aftermath of the Japanese nuclear catastrophe.
The decision came in the form of a memo, sent from the NRC Secretary to the NRC EDO (Executive Director for Operations). The memo simply states: "The Commission has approved the staff's recommendation that this Tier 3 Japan lessons-learned activity be closed and that no further generic assessments be pursued related to possible regulatory actions to require the expedited transfer of spent fuel to dry cask storage."
Four of the five NRC Commissioners (Svinicki, Apostalakis, Magwood, and Ostendorff) voted to support NRC Staff's recommendation, made late last year, that irradiated nuclear fuel currently stored in densely-packed pools, need not be transferred to dry casks on an expedited basis.
The sole dissenting vote on the NRC Commission came from its Chairwoman, Allison Macfarlane. Chairwoman Macfarlane criticized the NRC staff's analysis, including that the only risk initiator considered was an earthquake. She called for a “more thorough analysis,” including consideration “of all natural and human-induced events (e.g., accidental, malevolent).”
Chairwoman Macfarlane provided a more than 10-page analysis explaining her dissent. Three of the other Commissioners who blessed the staff's recommendation for inaction provided a page, or less, of explanation for their own votes.
In Jan. 2003 (nine years before she would be appointed as NRC Chairwoman), Macfarlane herself co-authored a study, published by Princeton's Science and Global Security, warning about the potentially catastrophic risks of densely-packed storage pool fires. Malevolent acts were foremost in the co-authors' minds, as the 2003 warning came in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The 9/11 Commission documented that Al Qaeda had considered attacking nuclear power plants.
U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) blasted the NRC decision, stating:
“Overcrowded spent nuclear fuel pools are a disaster waiting to happen. Experts agree an accident at one of these pools could result in damage as bad as that caused by an accident at an operating nuclear reactor. Pilgrim Nuclear Plant’s spent fuel pool contains nearly four times more radioactive waste than it was originally designed to hold. It is time for the NRC to post the ‘Danger’ sign outside the fuel pools and begin to swiftly move spent fuel to safer storage now before a disaster occurs.”
Pilgrim, near Boston, is a more than four decade old General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactor (GE BWR Mark I), identical in design and vintage to the four wrecked reactors at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan. Pilgrim is owned by Entergy Nuclear.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a leading critic of Entergy's Vermont Yankee atomic reactor, responded:
“We are one natural disaster, mechanical failure or terrorist attack away from a disaster. The sooner we get the spent (fuel) out of the pools and into dry casks, the better, and if the NRC will not change the rules, I will continue to work with my colleagues to change the rules through legislation.”
VY is also a GE BWR Mark I. Its owner, also Entergy Nuclear, announced VY will be closed by the end of 2014.
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said she was “deeply troubled” by the NRC’s inaction, adding:
“Earlier this month, a wildfire came within a half mile of the now-closed San Onofre nuclear plant, which is storing most of its spent fuel in pools rather than in dry cask storage.”
Boxer chairs the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), on which Markey and Sanders also serve. EPW has oversight on NRC. Two weeks ago -- coincidentally, on the very day those fires threatened San Onofre nuclear power plant -- Boxer convened a hearing to address the risks of high-level radioactive waste pool storage. Boxer, Markey, and Sanders had just introduced legislation the previous day, requiring expedited transfer of irradiated nuclear fuel from pools to dry casks. The three Senators grilled a top official from the NRC, as well as the top official from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's DC lobby HQ.
Please urge your two U.S. Senators to support these three bills. You can contact your Senators via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
Boxer has scheduled another EPW hearing for June 4th regarding "NRC’s Implementation of the Fukushima Near-Term Task Force Recommendations and other Actions to Enhance and Maintain Nuclear Safety." All five NRC Commissioners will likely be called as witnesses, where the four who voted against expedited transfer can be expected to be grilled.
David Lochbaum, the Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), has denounced NRC's decision, stating “We’re very disappointed by that decision, because it’s wrong.” He called NRC's decision “very shoddy work. It was incomplete, inaccurate.”
In a statement on NRC's decision, Edwin Lyman of UCS stated:
"[W]e commend NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane for her clear, logical and courageous comments accompanying her vote, which directed the NRC staff to continue its assessment. Her vote commentary points out that, according to the NRC staff’s study, reducing the density of spent fuel in a pool at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, for example, could lower the human health consequences of a zirconium fire by more than a factor of 10, the number of individuals who may have to abandon their homes by a factor of 50, and the economic cost by $100 billion."
Peach Bottom Units 2 & 3 are also GE BWR Mark Is.
Along with Macfarlane, Lyman served as a co-author of the 2003 independent study.
David Wright, physicist and co-director of Global Security at UCS, has also published a blog on the NRC decision, entitled "Nuclear Power Regulator Sticks Its Head Further Into the Ground." Wright's blog contains numerous additional links to further analyses and documents.
(Fairewinds Energy Education chose the same metaphor for a May, 2013 podcast interview with Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps. "Nuclear Regulators Stick Their Heads in the Sand" focused on the problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor, which had just spilled more than 80 gallons of radioactive water into Lake Michigan.)
Hundreds of groups, representing all 50 states, have long called for Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS). A top priority of HOSS is thinning densely-packed pools, by expediting transfer of irradiated nuclear fuel into significantly upgraded dry cask storage systems.
The AP has reported on NRC's rejection of expedited nuclear fuel transfer out of pools.