In a regulatory change that would create new headaches for NRG Energy’s new reactors project at the South Texas Project nuclear plant, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in October issued a draft rule that would require already approved reactor designs to be evaluated for possible changes to protect against airplane attacks, a switch from the commissions previous plan.
The NRC’s initial version of the rule, issued in April 2004, would have applied the new airplane-protection requirements only to new reactor designs that are currently seeking NRC design certification, reports our sister publication Energy Daily.
But the majority of the comments protested that exclusion.
“The staff agrees…the underlying objectives of the aircraft impact rule would not be fully achieved if a subset of future nuclear power plant applicants–namely, those applicants [for licenses to build new plants] who reference one of the four existing design certifications–are not required to comply with the aircraft impact rule,” the NRC staff says in an October memo.
From among the 17 new reactor applications that NRC has received in recent months, that change would affect only one, NRG Energy’s plan to build two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWR) at the Bay City, Texas, South Texas Project.
Unlike most of the other reactors utilities are planning to build, the ABWR has received NRC approval.
One other exception, Westinghouse’s AP1000 pressurized water reactor, has received design certification but is under NRC review for a license amendment that would require an aircraft impact assessment even without the Oct. 15 rule change, say an NRC spokeswoman.
Although the new version of the aircraft rule expands the scope of affected new reactor projects, one basic and controversial feature of the rule remains unchanged: the new rule does not flatly require changes in reactor designs to protect against accidental or deliberate plane attacks.
Instead it requires new nuclear reactor applicants to assess potential effects of a large, commercial aircraft hitting the reactors and to “identify and incorporate into the design those design features and functional capabilities that avoid or mitigate, to the extent practical and with reduced reliance on operator actions, the effects of the aircraft impact on key safety functions,” according to the memo.
The rule also does not require aircraft impact assessment for existing nuclear plants. The NRC has defended that decision by saying that the designs of existing plants, plus public agency protections at various levels, prove adequate protection.
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a longtime nuclear industry critic and senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, blasted the latest version of the rule and said he will try to change it. He plans to continue pushing his legislation that would require new nuclear reactors to be designed to withstand the impact of a large commercial aircraft “so these decisions cannot be left up to the whims of the NRC.”