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08.09

IEEE-USA Reviewing Position Statement on Nuclear Power

By Barton Reppert

IEEE-USA is focusing renewed attention on civilian nuclear energy, with the Energy Policy Committee currently reviewing a June 2004 IEEE-USA position statement on existing U.S. nuclear power plants, which endorsed “continued use of nuclear energy as a major component in a balanced portfolio of energy sources.”

Asked about his own views on this issue, IEEE-USA President Gordon Day observed that “If we are to achieve meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions over the next several decades, we must deploy most of the methods available. Nuclear generation is an essential strategy, because it can provide large amounts of power continuously and yet it produces few greenhouse gas emissions.”

The 2004 position statement needs to be updated, or otherwise it will “sunset” on 31 December of this year.

According to Thomas J. Gentile, chair of IEEE-USA's Energy Policy Committee (EPC), the position statement “is in the process of being reviewed to determine if and to what extent it should be modified. The EPC should be making a decision on the fate of the position statement during its September 2009 meeting.”

The 2004 position statement said in part: “IEEE-USA recognizes the need for the existing nuclear power plants in the United States, and it supports actions needed to keep them in operation, as much as possible, for the foreseeable future. IEEE-USA believes that these plants have operated and can continue to operate reliably and safely, with environmental impacts comparable to those of fossil-fueled energy sources. Further, such plants are essential to the supply of adequate electrical energy to electricity customers.”

The EPC most recently presented its views on nuclear power in the committee’s National Energy Policy Recommendations, published in January 2009. These recommendations noted that “nuclear power plants are the largest-capacity power generation sources that emit negligible greenhouse gasses. They have the ability to provide continuous base-load generation regardless of the time of day or weather conditions. They also have a high energy density and small footprint, thus permitting locations nearer to demand centers. The 104 nuclear plants in the United States have proven to be cost-competitive with both conventional fossil fuels and renewable sources and, through license renewal, will operate for many decades.”

The EPC recommended:

• Supporting a comprehensive spent nuclear fuel management program that would close the fuel cycle and develop a disposal facility as mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.

• Developing and deploying new reprocessing technologies to improve economics and reduce proliferation concerns.

• Supporting industry and academia in exercising world leadership in nuclear science and technology.

• “Continuing to support provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 pertaining to the construction of next-generation nuclear power plants.

• Developing regulations for the interstate transportation of nuclear waste that include omnibus rules for safety and security to facilitate reprocessing and storage.

• Supporting the use of nuclear process heat application to the chemical and petroleum industry, e.g. the production of hydrogen.

Asked about his own views on the sensitive issue of spent nuclear fuel disposal, Gentile told IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer Online: “I believe that storage of irradiated nuclear fuel elements in the Yucca Mountain [Nevada] facility is a political issue and the fate of that is in the hands of the politicians. I do believe that we should be developing and deploying new reprocessing technologies to improve economics of irradiated nuclear fuel elements. Reprocessing has the potential both to reduce the amount of waste committed to long-term storage, typically by about five times, and to greatly reduce the quantity of very long-lived radionuclides. I believe that we should be developing regulations for interstate transportation of nuclear waste to facilitate reprocessing and storage.”

Gentile noted that the nuclear power industry in recent years has developed substantially improved reactor designs, with significantly strengthened safeguards. “The new designs, unlike those of the past, do not depend on engineered safeguards, which were typically active systems, involving pumps, tanks and valves, as first-line interventions to prevent or mitigate accidents,” he said. “Rather, they are designed such that any excursion which might cause damage will be opposed by passive, or inherent, features of the system. While engineered safeguards of various kinds will still be present, they will not be the first line of defense, as they were in previous reactors.”

On 4 May, Commissioner Kristine L. Svinicki, a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, gave a speech to the French Institute for International Relations in which she observed that “in the United States — and globally — there has been much discussion in recent years of a so-called ‘Nuclear Renaissance.’ Generally speaking, this phrase describes a renewed interest by government and industry in nuclear power as a solution to a number of the world’s most daunting problems, including energy shortages and clean air goals.”

“If it comes to fruition in the United States, such a renaissance could result in the construction of the first new nuclear power plants in years, and is already leading to the creation of new, more-standardized and potentially safer nuclear reactor designs,” she said.

Commissioner Svinicki added that “the NRC has made significant changes and improvements to our regulatory processes and personnel staffing to ensure that such a renaissance would result in the continued safe use of nuclear power, but would not impose unreasonable regulatory burdens that would stifle such efforts.”

In particular, she noted, “the most significant change to licensing has been the creation of the so-called ‘one step’ licensing process.”

All of the current fleet of 104 U.S. nuclear power reactors were licensed under a “two-step” licensing process, under which applicants first needed to obtain a construction permit, and then, while construction was under way, were required to apply for an operating license. But this resulted in numerous complications and delays.

To address these problems, in 1989 the NRC established a new combined construction permit and operating license — or “combined license” — application process which was further refined and updated with a rule-making that concluded in 2007.

As Commissioner Svinicki said in her 4 May talk, “the main advantage of this one-step process is that it is designed to provide issue finality on a great number of design and siting issues that would not need to be revisited during he combined license application process. Further, it was thought that the variability and customization that resulted from two-step licensing would be greatly reduced.”

“Since the NRC would already have reviewed and approved both the site and the plant design, and the staff would be dealing with, at most, a handful of fairly uniform designs, the combined license reviews would be reduced in scope and would also have the effect of reducing the scope of a post-licensing hearing,” she said.

Barton Reppert is an independent science and technology writer, based in the Washington, D.C., area, who focuses on coverage of S&T policy issues. He previously worked for 18 years as a reporter and editor with The Associated Press in Washington, New York and Moscow.

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.