NEI Nuclear Notes

The following guest post comes from Victoria Anderson, senior project manager for risk assessment at NEI. Since the NRC published the Probabilistic Risk Assessment Policy Statement in 1995, both the industry and NRC have worked to use risk information to better focus implementation of regulations at our country’s nuclear reactors. Risk information has helped advance maintenance efforts, routine inspections and testing procedures to ensure that licensees direct resources to the equipment and practices that are most important to safe, reliable operation of their plants. In one such effort, in 2004, the NRC published a voluntary rule – 10 CFR 50.69 , Risk-informed categorization and treatment of structures, systems and components for nuclear power reactors – that would allow licensees to refocus their equipment special treatment requirements on the structures, systems and components that are the most important to protecting the plant. Specifically, licensees implementing this volunta...

Well, you know, not all the rest, but a few more items. This could go on all day: 1. Small Reactors – In December, The Department of Energy selected NuScale Power as the winner of up to $226 million in funding support for a cost-shared public-private partnership to develop innovative small reactor technology. The award will be disbursed over five years and will help the company design, certify and achieve commercial operation of its 45-megawatt NuScale Power Module small reactor design by 2025. DOE’s selection criteria for this award focused on reactor technologies that have unique and innovative safety features to mitigate the consequences of severe natural events similar to those at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi. NuScale’s press statement noted that its design’s “unique and proprietary break-through technology” using natural forces of gravity, convection and conduction will allow “safe and simpler operations and safe shutdown.” DOE’s first award in 2012 focused on small reactor de...

Do the regulated always feel overregulated? One day’s delivery brings a directive stipulating that the sidewalks must be widened to permit two wheelchairs to cross paths without bumping. Another says the school cafeteria must be made accessible by elevator. Trees must be trimmed of branches six feet up their trunks, the orders go, and only government-certified technicians can change a light bulb on city property. This is from a story in the Washington Post about a small French town (pop. 600) called Albaret-Sainte-Marie and its relationship with regulators in Paris. Now, except for the light bulb changing, all these directives could have truly beneficial outcomes, making life easier for a slice of the population, notably the disabled slice, but if various agencies are all putting their stamps onto the daily life of Albaret-Sainte-Marie simultaneously, the result could drain the town’s resources and kill the town’s overall civic effort to enable a better life for its people...

Over the past few months, anti-nuclear groups have regularly attacked our industry for allegedly resisting implementing changes at our facilities in the wake of the incident at Fukushima Daiichi. While that’s simply not the case , it’s a perception that often gets reinforced in the press—and this morning’s mailbag contained yet another example. Politico Pro posted an article this morning, “ NRC Won’t Make Post-Fukushima Safety Recommendations Mandatory ,” that is misleading and egregiously inaccurate. At issue is how the term “mandatory” is used to show how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will both implement and mandate its post-Fukushima recommendations. The lede states: The NRC on Thursday cemented a to-do list of post-Fukushima safety recommendations for U.S. nuclear plants but won't make them mandatory. That caught the attention of Jason Zorn, NEI’s assistant general counsel, who made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that this is incorrect. I spoke with him ...

In today's Washington Post , Steven Perlstein shares thoughts on the politics of regulation after Deepwater Horizon. The title gives you his main point: "Time for Industry to End Its War on Regulation." Perlstein cites examples of oil, coal and financial regulators being too close to, or too cowed by, the industries they oversee. He believes regulation was too lax under the Bush administration and considers it laughable that industry observers would suggest that 16 months into the Obama administration, regulation has already become too tight. Perlstein describes the value of regulation as helping stave off low-probability events that could have devastating consequences. In the financial sector, he acknowledges that regulation may "trim profits" for the businesses involved, but insists we remember the benefit associated with this cost: The big flaw in the business critique of regulation is not so much that it overstates the costs, but that it understates its ben...

A great list from Depleted Cranium .

Jack Spencer of the Heritage Foundation has published a pair of papers that should make your reading list. First, read Congress Should Not Overlook Benefits of Nuclear Energy , then take a look at Competitive Nuclear Energy Investment: Avoiding Past Policy Mistakes . Thanks to Rod Adams for the pointers.