10-02-2012, 07:17 AM
NRC approves first new reactors since 1978
The NRC, America's nuclear power regulatory board, has given the go ahead to two new reactors in Georgia. Industry advocates call the decision 'historic,' but it had a prominent critic.
By Mark Clayton, Staff writer / February 9, 2012
Southern Company Chairman, President, and CEO Thomas Fanning announces that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4 to 1 to approve the Atlanta-based company's request to build two nuclear reactors at its Vogtle site south of Augusta, during a news conference in Atlanta Thursday.
John Bazemore/AP
The federal board that regulates nuclear power in the US on Thursday voted to allow construction to proceed on the first new commercial nuclear power reactors in more than three decades.
Related stories
The decision, which clears the way for two reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power site east of Atlanta, was immediately hailed as "historic" by business groups and nuclear-industry advocates. But it was condemned not only by nuclear-safety watchdog groups, but also by the chairman of the regulatory group itself.
"Ultimately, my responsibility is to make what I believe is the best decision for nuclear safety," said Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the sole dissenting vote on the five-member panel, in a statement. "I simply cannot authorize issuance of these licenses without any binding obligation that these plants will have implemented the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident before they operate."
RECOMMENDED: How safe is nuclear power? Three lessons from Japan.
Following the Fukushima accident in Japan last March, an NRC special task force identified numerous safety improvements for US nuclear plants, but the commission has not acted yet to approve any of them.
To ensure that the new plants carried forward the lessons learned from that accident, Mr. Jaczko had proposed that new licensees' plants meet all post-Fukushima standards the NRC approves. The four other commissioners disagreed and overruled him, arguing that the NRC has enough tools to change standards as needed without needing to write them into licenses.
"We find ourselves in disagreement with the specific approach he offers in his dissent namely, an across-the-board license condition requiring implementation of 'all' Fukushima-related requirements prior to operation of the Vogtle plant," the four commissioners wrote. "Such a license condition, in our view, cannot now be framed in meaningful terms."
Moreover, the license-condition approach is "unnecessary, given the myriad of regulatory tools available to the NRC to implement Fukushima-related requirements as they emerge," the commissioners added.
Nuclear-watchdog groups took issue with that line of thinking. They argue that by not requiring in the construction license that the new reactors meet post-Fukushima safety standards, the NRC made it far less likely that new standards would be incorporated at all.
It's not at all clear if post-Fukushima standards which could require costly retrofits meet an NRC rule that requires companies to implement safety conditions only if they meet a cost-benefit analysis standard.
"The commission should have said: 'We're not going to leave the door open for you to say 10 years later, 'It's not worth it,' " says Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist and reactor-safety expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based nuclear-safety advocacy group. "It's actually a wise strategy that no new reactors be allowed to operate unless they can show they are in full compliance with post-Fukushima safety measures."
The NRC, America's nuclear power regulatory board, has given the go ahead to two new reactors in Georgia. Industry advocates call the decision 'historic,' but it had a prominent critic.
By Mark Clayton, Staff writer / February 9, 2012
Southern Company Chairman, President, and CEO Thomas Fanning announces that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4 to 1 to approve the Atlanta-based company's request to build two nuclear reactors at its Vogtle site south of Augusta, during a news conference in Atlanta Thursday.
John Bazemore/AP
The federal board that regulates nuclear power in the US on Thursday voted to allow construction to proceed on the first new commercial nuclear power reactors in more than three decades.
Related stories
The decision, which clears the way for two reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power site east of Atlanta, was immediately hailed as "historic" by business groups and nuclear-industry advocates. But it was condemned not only by nuclear-safety watchdog groups, but also by the chairman of the regulatory group itself.
"Ultimately, my responsibility is to make what I believe is the best decision for nuclear safety," said Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the sole dissenting vote on the five-member panel, in a statement. "I simply cannot authorize issuance of these licenses without any binding obligation that these plants will have implemented the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident before they operate."
RECOMMENDED: How safe is nuclear power? Three lessons from Japan.
Following the Fukushima accident in Japan last March, an NRC special task force identified numerous safety improvements for US nuclear plants, but the commission has not acted yet to approve any of them.
To ensure that the new plants carried forward the lessons learned from that accident, Mr. Jaczko had proposed that new licensees' plants meet all post-Fukushima standards the NRC approves. The four other commissioners disagreed and overruled him, arguing that the NRC has enough tools to change standards as needed without needing to write them into licenses.
"We find ourselves in disagreement with the specific approach he offers in his dissent namely, an across-the-board license condition requiring implementation of 'all' Fukushima-related requirements prior to operation of the Vogtle plant," the four commissioners wrote. "Such a license condition, in our view, cannot now be framed in meaningful terms."
Moreover, the license-condition approach is "unnecessary, given the myriad of regulatory tools available to the NRC to implement Fukushima-related requirements as they emerge," the commissioners added.
Nuclear-watchdog groups took issue with that line of thinking. They argue that by not requiring in the construction license that the new reactors meet post-Fukushima safety standards, the NRC made it far less likely that new standards would be incorporated at all.
It's not at all clear if post-Fukushima standards which could require costly retrofits meet an NRC rule that requires companies to implement safety conditions only if they meet a cost-benefit analysis standard.
"The commission should have said: 'We're not going to leave the door open for you to say 10 years later, 'It's not worth it,' " says Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist and reactor-safety expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based nuclear-safety advocacy group. "It's actually a wise strategy that no new reactors be allowed to operate unless they can show they are in full compliance with post-Fukushima safety measures."
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass