Regulators lift nuke plant licensing moratorium

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) voted Tuesday to end a moratorium on issuing plant licenses that it had imposed while it considered nuclear waste storage issues.

The commission also voted to adopt a new rule reiterating that spent fuel rods can be stored at closed nuclear plants for long periods of time, the NRC said in a statement.

{mosads}The NRC had voted in 2012 to stop issuing new reactor licenses, license renewals and spent fuel licenses.

The vote followed a federal court decision ruling that the NRC should consider the possibility that the federal government will never establish a permanent nuclear waste storage facility. The court said NRC should analyze the environmental impact of permanently storing spent fuel at closed plants, including the possibilities of spent fuel pool leaks and fires.

The analysis adopted Tuesday through a rule concluded that “spent fuel can be safely managed in … dry casks during the short-term, long-term and indefinite timeframes.” It reiterated the NRC’s previous position on spent fuel storage.

Tuesday’s action did not itself approve any licenses.

On-site spent fuel storage has been extremely controversial among lawmakers and outside groups. Environmentalists and some Democrats in Congress have called for stricter rules to keep fuel rods safe.

The Nuclear Energy Institute commended the NRC.

“The completion of this rule-making is an important step that will facilitate final decisions on industry licensing actions pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” Ellen Ginsburg, the institute’s vice president, said in a statement.

“Industry supports the commission’s decision to continue its longstanding and court-sanctioned practice of considering long-term used fuel storage issues generically. Issuance of this rule will maximize efficiency in the licensing and relicensing processes while ensuring the agency complies with the requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act to disclose the environmental impacts of used fuel storage.”