Platts - Friday, September 02, 2005 http://www.platts.com ------------ German nuke life extension plan is against security law: study Freiburg (Platts)--2Sep2005 The German opposition CDU party's planned extension of the lives of nuclear power plants violates German law after terror attacks on New York on Sep 11 heightened internal security concerns, a report commissioned by the German environmental group Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) said Friday. The CDU and its likely coalition partner, the FDP, plan to extend the lives of nuclear power plants by eight years to 40 years. However, the new CDU energy adviser Heinrich von Pierer, chairman of Siemens, wants the lives to be extended even more and re-evaluate nuclear power plants' status in Germany. Von Pierer has suggested an extension to 60 years. "We found that new regulations following Sep 11 mean that German decommissioning has to be continued because it is no longer a small risk that a nuclear unit would be attacked by terrorists," said DUH, citing internal security regulations from the home office. The group also noted that nuclear power plant operators had waived the unlimited operating permissions of their reactors when they signed the exisiting SPD-Green party coalition government's nuclear decommissioning program in June 2000. Now each reactor has a certain amount of power left to generate, after which their operating permission becomes invalid. "The idea of the CDU and FDP to undo that process cannot be held up legally," said Reiner Geulen, the nuclear law expert who carried out the study. He said local inhabitants or communities could take legal action against the nuclear plants' operation and the chances were good that they would win. For more information, take a trial to Platts Nucleonics Week Report at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/ ------------ Nevada wants court to force NRC to reconsider Yucca Mt. ruling Washington (Platts)--1Sep2005 Nevada has asked a federal appeals court to order NRC to reconsider the state's petition seeking a change in NRC's Waste Confidence rule. The 1990 rule says the commission is confident that spent fuel can be safely stored in casks at reactor sites for 100 years and that irradiated fuel will be moved to a geologic repository by 2025. Nevada has been fighting the repository DOE plans to build at Yucca Mountain. The state argued in a complaint it filed today with the U.S. Appeals Court in Washington, D.C. that NRC's recent denial of the state petition was unlawful, according to Joseph Egan, an attorney for Nevada. The state maintains the 2025 date is "arbitrary and capricious" and that DOE will not have a repository ready by then, he said. Separately, Nevada Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams said the state would closely monitor NRC and Environmental Protection Agency regulation developments for a Yucca Mountain repository, indicating legal action on that front was possible if the agencies did not change their two-tiered approach. ------------ Duke Power unsure when Oconee-3 nuclear unit will return Washington (Platts)--1Sep2005 Duke Power does not have any projections of when its 846-MW Oconee-3 nuclear power plant unit will return to service following its trip off-line Wednesday and is continuing its investigation the trip, a company spokeswoman said Thursday. The unit in Seneca, South Carolina tripped during routine maintenance testing of the control rod drive system when power to the system was lost, she said. The spokeswoman said some of the unit's safety systems actuated during the trip and operated as designed. In an event report to the NRC, Duke said the safety significance of the trip was low. An NRC spokesman said the agency is considering its response to the trip. NRC's options include some type of follow-up inspection, such as a special inspection team, he said. For more information, take a trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://nucweek.platts.com. ------------ Waterford-3 to get relief workers Washington (Platts)--31Aug2005 Entergy and NRC are sending in relief to the operators and inspectors at Waterford-3, which has been shut down since Sunday because of Hurricane Katrina. NRC Region IV spokesman Victor Dricks said additional people were sent to the site to provide a break to the resident inspectors and two additional regional staffers at the plant. Entergy spokesman Tim Crisler said the utility also gave "high priority" to getting relief workers on site. While there was no damage from the storm to the plant, voltage fluctuation is contributing to electrical grid instability. Waterford-3 has been running key safety systems from its emergency diesel generators, which yesterday received a shipment of additional fuel, Dricks said. Another NRC spokesman said today that the unit may not be able to restart until next week at the earliest, due to repairs needed to the grid and other nearby infrastructure. ------------ Early site permit review schedules slip, but little impact London (Platts)--31Aug2005 NRC said last week that the review schedules for the first round of early site permit (ESP) applications would slip between four and nine months, but that the delays would have little impact on its first-of-a-kind new plant licensing work. The unexpected delay, attributed primarily to the need to sort through thousands of comments the agency received on its three preliminary environmental reviews, pushes the targeted timeframe for a commission decision on the ESP applications to 32-39 months. Initially, NRC staff estimated it would take about 30 months from the application submittal date to the granting of the permit. But later it revised the estimate to about 33 months?roughly breaking down to about 21 months for the safety evaluation and environmental review portions and 12 additional months for completing the mandatory hearing. More recently, some staffers had upped the estimate to 37 months for more complex applications. The three ESP applications under review are for Dominion's North Anna site, Exelon Generation's Clinton site, and System Energy Resources Inc.'s (SERI) Grand Gulf site. SERI is a subsidiary of Entergy Corp. Laura Dudes, chief of the new reactors section in NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, said the number of comments sent to the agency took the staff by surprise. "Our previous experience had been with license renewal environmental impact statements, and we had not received anywhere near the number of comments," she told reporters in an Aug. 16 teleconference. "It's not the nature of the issues," Dudes said, "but we are required?and it's our job?to appropriately review each and every comment and provide a response to those comments." New schedules In an Aug. 16 letter to Dominion, William Beckner, program director of the New, Research and Test Reactors Program, said 1,300 people provided about 7,000 comments on the staff's draft environmental impact statement (EIS). "The number of comments significantly exceeded what had been planned for in the previous schedule," he said, in explaining the reason for a four-month delay in the final EIS. In separate letters to Exelon and SERI, Beckner said the effort devoted to responding to the draft EIS comments on the Dominion application would impact the review schedules for their applications. Dudes said there appeared to be a similar number of "substantive" comments on the Exelon and SERI draft EIS reports. She said the final EIS for the Grand Gulf application would be pushed back four months to April?and now moved ahead of Exelon's Clinton application. The Clinton EIS was rescheduled for issuance in July 2006, a nine-month delay, she said. Dominion and Exelon filed their applications on the same day, Sept. 25, 2003, and SERI followed about a month later, on Oct. 21, 2003. Dominion's application was put in the lead, with the review of the Exelon application next, and SERI's application as the final of the three. Now, SERI's application will be second and Exelon's application will be completed last. Dudes said the staff had encountered another challenge unique to Exelon's application. Exelon's ESP referenced a seismic methodology that has not been previously reviewed by the staff. While both Exelon and Dominion had originally submitted applications containing a new, performance-based methodology for seismic analyses, Dominion later revised its application to incorporate NRC-approved methodology after learning that the staff review would be slowed by a few months if it did not make the change. Exelon, however, stuck to the new methodology for determining the safe shutdown earthquake ground motion for the its site. Exelon spokesman Craig Nesbit said Aug. 17 that his company had not had time yet to determine the "practical effects" of the delay. But, he added, "We're disappointed NRC doesn't have the resources" for the review. Karl Neddenien, a Dominion spokesman, said his company understood the reason for the review schedule change. "Public participation is truly an important part of the process," he said. The review extension was not expected to have any significant impact on the company's plans, Neddenien said. Dudes said the staff was using its experience on the first batch of ESP applications to prepare for other new licensing activities, particularly for combined construction permit-operating licensing (COL) applications, which might be filed starting around mid- to late 2007 and in 2008. "We've learned some lessons on how to resource and develop sufficient electronic tools," she said. Budget considerations Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield cautioned the industry earlier this month that the agency's resources would play a significant factor in managing the work load of new plant licensing requests. Merrifield said he worried there could be a "stacking up"?or backlog?of applications, particularly if licensees do not provide the NRC with enough notice of their intentions. And even with advance notice, NRC still might have to prioritize the work, he said. "We will obviously be prepared to handle the few applications that we have been made aware of to date," Merrifield said in an Aug. 8 speech to the American Nuclear Society (ANS) conference in Amelia Island, Fla. "But beyond that, I think there is some uncertainty as to how the agency would handle any unexpected bow wave of 'surprise' applications for combined licenses, design certifications, or early site permits." NRC had originally budgeted $37-million in fiscal 2006 for work on new reactor licensing, which included the three ESP applications, two design certification applications, and work on a technology-neutral regulatory framework for advanced reactor designs. But NRC officials told lawmakers in the spring that since it developed its budget, the demand for new reactor licensing projects has increased. Congress responded to NRC's request, allocating another $20-million to support pre-application and other licensing work for COL applications expected to be filed starting in FY-08. Congress directed the agency to use the funds, which would be recouped through fees charged to licensees, to begin training new technical staffers to handle the expected load of three to five COL applications that could be submitted in the next couple years. NRC Executive Director for Operations Luis Reyes, in a separate session at the ANS conference, said the agency might receive an application from Southern Co. in 2006 and another from Constellation in 2007. Several COL applications are expected in 2007?from Dominion, the NuStart consortium, and Duke. A chart included in his presentation showed that there might be a COL application from the Tennessee Valley Authority in 2007 and a second from NuStart in 2008. In addition, design certification applications are expected for General Electric's Economic Simplified BWR, Areva's EPR, and PMBR Pty Ltd.'s Pebble Bed Modular Reactor. The agency also anticipates continuing licensing work on Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s advanced Candu reactor design, and possibly Toshiba's 4S reactor and Westinghouse's International Reactor Innovative & Secure design. Reyes told the conference that the agency would need to hire about 300 more technical staffers to prepare for the anticipated work. An NRC spokesman said last week that the staff increases would occur over fiscal years 2006-2009. Adrian Heymer, director of plant performance improvement at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), said the industry planned to discuss the cost issue for new reactor licensing, among other topics, at a chief nuclear officers' meeting at NEI on Aug. 18. "NRC is trying to do the right thing?train up [staffers] to understand the [10 CFR] Part 52 process" for new plant licensing, Heymer said. "That way, when they get the applications, they are halfway down the runway, so to speak." Heymer said some utilities have balked at having to cover costs associated with activities being pursued by a small group of companies. But to support the future of the industry, these expenses might have to be shared by all companies, he said. Southern says Vogtle possible site for new reactor Last week, Southern Nuclear Operating Co. told the NRC it had selected Vogtle to evaluate for possible future reactors. Southern Nuclear said it will file this summer either an application for an early site permit or information that would ultimately become part of a construction permit-operating license application. Southern Nuclear, a Southern Co. subsidiary, emphasized that the plant's owners have not decided to build a new unit. Letting the NRC know of the company's plans will help ensure the agency has sufficient resources for the application review, it said. Also, Southern Nuclear said, selection of the Vogtle site doesn't preclude other sites within Southern Co.'s service area from being considered for future nuclear units. Southern began seismic borings this week at Vogtle as part of its evaluation of that site. The drilling will check the site's integrity, including identifying any faults, said Southern spokesman Steve Higginbottom. The borings will also determine whether the site is stable enough to support containment and other structures for a new reactor, he said. Vogtle is owned by Georgia Power, Oglethorpe Power Corp., the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, and the City of Dalton. It is operated by Southern Nuclear. 'First in' policy? In his speech, Merrifield likened the possible influx of new reactor licensing applications to airport congestion and said NRC would have to play a role similar to that of air traffic controllers. "They know they have a limited number of gates with which to accommodate arriving and departing flights and a limited number of people who can arrive at the gates," Merrifield said. "But they also know that sometimes there are far more planes trying to land than there are available gates and personnel to handle them," he said. One solution, he suggested, would be to establish a "first in, first-out" policy, like the one it set up for license renewals. Also, the agency might have to limit the number of applications it could work on at any given time, he said. Merrifield also said he fully supported prioritizing work on reactor designs based on whether there was "licensee interest" rather than on designs that "vendors wish to certify in hopes of leveraging reactor orders." Heymer said he believed the agency should be able to handle the work load, based on past history. He said the agency had received about five operating license requests per year in the 1970s and four per year in the 1980s. That meant there could be eight or nine license applications at any time. "It would be somewhat sad to say we can't manage four or five COLs," he said. But, he said, "I think NRC should be able to handle the initial surge" of applications. This story was originally published in Inside NRC. To request a free trial to this newsletter go to http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/ ------------ Swiss regulators approve Leibstadt restart Zurich (Platts)--30Aug2005 Swiss regulators approved restart of Leibstadt, which has been off line five months for repairs to its electric generator. The Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (HSK) issued permission Aug. 27 for the 1,220-MW BWR to restart and increase power stepwise. The plant currently is in a test phase expected to last several days before full-power operation. All necessary repairs have been done and a partial inspection and refueling has been completed. Repair costs now are estimated at 13.5-million Swiss francs (U.S.$10.7-million). ------------ AEP says US NRC OKs 20-year license extensions for Cook plants Washington (Platts)--30Aug2005 Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power said the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Tuesday approved the company's request to renew for 20 years the operating licenses of its Cook 1 and 2 nuclear power plants in Bridgman, Michigan. The company said the operating license Cook Unit 1 was renewed until 2034 and for Cook Unit 2 until 2037. AEP filed the renewal application with the NRC in November 2003 after spending more than two years and 40,000 work hours performing a safety review on the effects of aging on plants' systems, structures and components. The Cook facility, which has a generating capacity of more than 2,100 MW, represents approximately 8% of AEP's generating capacity. Cook Unit 1 went on-line in 1975 and Unit 2 in 1978. The units originally were licensed for 40 years of operation. For more information, take a trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://nucweek.platts.com. ------------ NRC must OK restart of Waterford-3 after Hurricane Katrina Washington (Platts)--29Aug2005 NRC must approve restart of waterford-3, shut in anticipation of hurricane Katrina, said plant spokeswoman Jill Smith. Entergy's Waterford-3 is approximately 20 miles west of New Orleans, where the hurricane made landfall this morning. Although constructed to withstand hurricane force winds, tornadoes, floods, and other external forces, the plant powered down in compliance with NRC regulations on the availability of off-site response capabilities, Smith said. In advance of the storm, NRC sent additional personnel to Waterford-3 and two other Entergy plants--River Bend, about 81 miles west of New Orleans, and Grand Gulf, about 25 miles south of Vicksburg, Miss. The latter two plants did not shut down but were closely monitored. The hurricane passed through New Orleans by mid-morning, then veered north to Mississippi. ------------ Progress tells NRC it is 'making plans' for nuke license request Washington (Platts)--29Aug2005 Progress Energy has informed the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it is "making plans" that could lead it to submit a combined construction and operating license for a new nuclear power plant if it decides to go the nuclear route for new generation, it said Monday. Progress expects to select a potential site and reactor vendor for such a plant by the end of 2005, it said. The application for the combined construction and operating license could be filed in early 2008 and if approved by the NRC, station construction could begin as early as 2010 and a new plant could be online around 2015, it said. Notifying the NRC of the company's intent will help ensure that the agency has sufficient resources for the application review, Progress said. The pre-notification is a step in the process necessary to obtain a license should Progress decide that a new nuclear unit is the best option for meeting the need for additional generation, it added. "Planning for new baseload power is a lengthy process that we take seriously," said CS Hinnant, chief nuclear officer for Progress Energy. "We have made it clear that we will keep the option open to build new nuclear generation." For more information, take a trial to Platts Natural Gas Alert at http://naturalgasalert.platts.com. ------------ NRC publishes revised fitness-for-duty rules Washington (Platts)--26Aug2005 NRC published today its proposed revisions to the fitness-for-duty regulations. The 237-page proposal in the Federal Register outlines changes that NRC says would bring the rule more in line with the Department of Health & Human Services guidelines for drug and alcohol testing programs. The changes also would provide more consistency on access authorization requirements for nuclear plants, and strengthen licensee programs for managing worker fatigue, NRC said. The deadline for submitting comments on the rule is Dec. 27. ------------