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Environment, Energy and Transportation Program

Radioactive Waste News

A Quarterly Summary of Generation, Transportation, Storage and Disposal Issues

Vol. 20, No. 4
December 2003

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In This Issue

In Depth: The Difference between "Hot" and Cold Could Alter Repository Timeline
DOE Complex
DOE Access to the Nuclear Waste Fund
Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compacts
Department of Energy Facility Updates
Yucca Mountain
Microorganisms and Uranium: The Dynamic Duo
Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations
Spent Fuel Cask Updates

In Depth: The Difference between "Hot" and Cold Could Alter Repository Timeline

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB), in a letter to the Department of Energy (DOE), stated that the "hot" repository planned for Nevada is likely to trigger localized corrosion of the waste packages at some point during the first 1,000 years of operation. Of concern to the NWTRB is the length of time the waste packages will be capable of isolating the waste.

The board is considering current data that analyzes the probability of the waste packages perforating or corroding. The data suggests that, if the surface temperatures of the packages are kept below 95 degrees Celsius, perforation is unlikely. A "hot" repository would operate at temperatures above 95 degrees Celsius, the boiling point of water at Yucca Mountain. It is thought that the localized corrosion initiated in a "hot" repository will result in a "significant number" of waste package failures during the federally required 10,000-year isolation period. In contrast, DOE maintains that the preponderance of the waste packages will remain intact for the 10,000-year period with only a small number of premature failures.

The reaction to this revelation by several of the board members is that, "this is not a show stopper." Some of the corrosion experts on the board stated in interviews that this is a potential problem that can be corrected. It could be that DOE might be required to perform additional technical studies or waste package redesign studies in order to support its decision to continue with a "hot" repository. Another option, which would also require additional work, is for the agency to change to a repository that operates at cooler temperatures.

It is DOE's position that high temperatures will alleviate the chance of corrosion and extend the life of the waste package by evaporating moisture from nearby rock, driving steam into the rock, keeping the waste packages dry longer. In its letter, the NWTRB presented a position in opposition to that of DOE, emphasizing the need for additional information regarding the general corrosion rate in a repository environment in order to determine the material thickness needed to perform for the life of the system.

Should DOE choose a cold repository over its current plans for a "hot" repository at Yucca Mountain during licensing, repository operations could be delayed. Although DOE has targeted 2010 for the start of repository operations, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) commissioner Edward McGaffigan has said that, even under the best conditions, he believes a disposal facility will not be available until some time between 2012 and 2015. The commissioner further stated that this timeline should not be a surprise due to the NRC's two-step licensing process for a repository, a facility that will be the first of its kind.

It is anticipated that DOE will file its repository license application with NRC in December 2004, and construction authorization is anticipated in December 2007. A subsequent license amendment for the receipt and possession of waste at the repository will be filed in 2008 and is expected to be received in 2010. If, during any phase of the licensing procedure, DOE decides to shift from a "hot" repository to one that operates at cooler temperatures, a new adjudicatory hearing could be required.

The agency is expected to soon give some indication as to the approach it will take in its application. Commissioner McGaffigan expressed some disbelief that, after years of debate between DOE and NWTRB over a "hot" versus cold repository, the issue would remain unresolved 14 months before the submittal to NRC of a repository license application.

DOE Complex

Parties Involved in Waste Reclassification Agree to Mediation

In spite of their courtroom victory in July, the parties that defeated the Department of Energy's (DOE) attempt to assert broad reclassification powers with regard to radioactive waste are willing to take the dispute to a mediator. DOE has yet to publicly voice its opinion on mediation. Both sides had until October 10, 2003, to file paperwork indicating whether they were willing to take the reclassification dispute to a mediator. Legally allowed to keep its filed answer confidential, DOE has done just that, possibly because the agency is still attempting to persuade Congress to grant it the broad reclassification powers it is requesting.

It is the contention of DOE that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982 gives it the authority to designate the wastes at the Hanford, Savannah River and Idaho Falls DOE sites as high-level and low-activity as the material moves from the storage tanks to the treatment facilities. Even with the agency's assertions of its powers under the NWPA, DOE officials still are attempting to convince the congressional conference committee working on the energy bill to insert reclassification language into the final version of the bill.

But with a vote on the energy bill possibly delayed until 2004, DOE is vulnerable to additional lawsuits being filed challenging the current classification of tank wastes. If such a lawsuit were to be filed, clean-up efforts could be significantly delayed. At this time, no states or environmental organizations have challenged current waste classifications for high-level and low-activity wastes.

For more information about the waste reclassification issue, see the NCSL Radioactive Waste Newsletter 20, no.3 (October 2003).

DOE Access to the Nuclear Waste Fund

Rather than give the DOE waste program direct access to the Nuclear Waste Fund's annual receipts, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has decided to raise the federal budget cap in FY 2005. At the same time, the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition (NWSC) is working to free the DOE waste program from discretionary budget caps, while providing the program access to the waste fund's total annual receipts, which totaled roughly $21.8 billion at the end of March 2003.

The fund was established by Congress in 1983 to fund the disposal of utility spent nuclear fuel by including a special fee in the monthly bill sent to ratepayers by nuclear utilities. The DOE waste program has spent nearly half of the money in the fund, even though the department does not expect to begin operating the repository until 2010, 12 years after the contract date for the start of disposal operations. The OMB expressed support of the waste program, but felt that keeping the program under a budget cap would allow the federal government greater program oversight.

The NWSC is adamant that the waste program will need increased funding to pay for repository design work beginning in FY 2004. The upcoming fiscal year is the first that the program budget is expected to exceed $1 billion. With the upcoming addition of construction and transportation costs, the program budget request is expected to remain at that level until 2010.

An additional financial liability is the billions of dollars in damage claims faced by the federal government due to DOE's inability to begin waste disposal operations by the 1998 contract date. The nuclear generators that have not yet filed suit are expected to do so prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations at the end of January 2004. Because the utilities' estimated damages total more than $50 billion-more than double DOE's total FY 2004 budget request-DOE will have to cut programs in order to amass the money needed to pay the damages.

Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compacts

The Texas Compact - The Vermont attorney general's office decided that the state has no choice but to pay Texas $12.5 million for the development of a low-level radioactive waste dump. The legislature is not in complete agreement with that assessment. On October 3, 2003, the legislature's Joint Fiscal Committee voted in favor of advising Governor Douglas to attempt to renegotiate the terms of the compact, allowing Vermont to withhold the money until a site is permitted in Texas.

The hesitancy of the Vermont legislature to pay the requisite $12.5 million stems from the fact that, if Texas is unable to find an acceptable site, it is not required to return the money. The current Vermont administration is willing to make the inquiries requested by the Joint Fiscal Committee, but is of the mindset that the state is contractually obligated to pay. If Vermont does fail to make its first compact payment, Texas has the right to sue or can remove Vermont from the compact. John Bloomer, Vermont Senate Minority Leader, issued words of warning to members of the joint fiscal committee, stating, "If you back out of Texas, you'd better have another plan."

For more information about the Texas Compact, see the NCSL Radioactive Waste Newsletter 20, no.3 (October 2003).

Department of Energy Facility Updates

Fernald

• Radioactive sludge at Fernald is the center of a possible dispute between the state of Utah and DOE. Due to a loophole in the labeling scheme, the radioactive material may be sent to a Tooele County landfill in Utah. The state-regulated low-level radioactive waste normally would be designated "Class C" due to the quantity of long-lived radioactive radium contained in the material. Utah state lawmakers placed a moratorium on Class C waste in 2002. A cooperative effort between state and federal authorities resulted in the waste being officially classified as "byproduct material."

Hanford

• The closing of the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) is expected to be complete by 2012. In anticipation, DOE hopes to establish an eight-year shut-down contract. Depending on the proposals the agency receives to continue work to close the dormant research reactor, the contract could run for a longer or shorter period of time. DOE hopes to award the contract in 2004; a final request for proposals will be issued on December 15, 2003, and bids are to be received at DOE by February 12, 2004.

• Fourteen years following the signing of the Tri-Party Agreement, officials from Washington and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have agreed on clean-up milestones for the remainder of the waste at Hanford. The agreement specifies that DOE is required to retrieve the less radioactive waste stored underground by 2010 and the more highly radioactive waste, which must be remotely handled, by 2018. Finalization of the agreement will not occur until the area's Indian tribes and the Hanford Advisory Board are consulted and public comments are considered. The issue of whether the state has jurisdiction to regulate transuranic waste is being left for the courts to decide.

Oak Ridge

• A new nuclear waste processing plant will open in Oak Ridge in January 2004. Radioactive waste, some remaining from the Manhattan project, will be processed at the facility and packaged for transport. Supernates, a type of liquid waste, will be packaged in casks and sent to the Nevada Test Site, while other transuranic waste-plutonium and curium-will be packaged and sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

Paducah

• On October 1, 2003, DOE signed an agreed order with the state of Kentucky to accelerate cleanup at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP). The order-signed by Henry C. List, secretary of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet, and Jessie Hill Roberson, assistant secretary for Environmental Management-will resolve outstanding compliance issues at PGDP. In addition to paying penalties associated with notices of violation, DOE will invest in environmental improvement projects near the plant.

• The Kentucky Natural Resources Cabinet and DOE signed an agreement on October 1, 2003, calling for the Energy Department to pay a $1 million fine to resolve several citations for the illegal disposal and storage of hazardous waste at three landfills. Three families living near the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant filed a lawsuit on November 3, 2003, asking a state circuit court to set aside the settlement. The lawsuit is based on the belief of the plaintiffs that the state agency "gave the cleanup away," making a deal behind closed doors that absolved DOE of responsibility.

Savannah River

• The Watts Barr Nuclear Plant, in Spring City, Tennessee, has a dual military-civilian mission-producing electricity for homes and factories and isotopes for bombs. The single reactor plant, owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority, will change out its 240 tritium producing rods during the next 18 months for its next scheduled refueling outage. The sealed rods will be shipped via flatbed truck to the Savannah River Site, where the tritium will be extracted under high temperature.

YUCCA Mountain

Rural Counties Consider a Transportation Pact

In an unprecedented move, three counties and one city in rural Nevada are considering forming a regional agency to coordinate transportation of nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain. The unsigned draft agreement for the "Regional Transportation Cooperative Authority" would create a pact between Nye, Lincoln and Esmeralda counties and the city of Caliente that would receive federal or state funding for their mission. The cooperative authority, if approved by Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval, would develop information, formulate proposals, recommend plans and adopt policies regarding transportation corridors.

Officials from Lander and Nye counties were to meet October 23, 2003, to discuss a transportation study that includes a potential rail route to Yucca Mountain. Lander County Commissioner Mickey Yarbro indicated that the counties are attempting to ascertain cost and location of a route if a rail line is put in. One potential route under discussion is between Battle Mountain and Carlin, heading southeast to Nye County, where Yucca Mountain is located.

NRC Urged to Delay on DOE Application

In a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Robert Loux, the head of Nevada's nuclear waste office, has asked the commission to refrain from formally accepting the Department of Energy's (DOE) license application for Yucca Mountain until all key technical issue (KTI) agreements have been met. The state has indicated that it might take legal action if the NRC allows DOE to complete KTIs after the license application has been recorded. DOE has told NRC officials that some of the KTIs will not be complete until 2005.

It is the state of Nevada's position that the delays in submitting the KTIs is a violation of licensing support network (LSN) requirements that DOE post supporting documents of the license application on the Web-based LSN six months prior to submitting an application to NRC. The state is requesting that NRC abstain from accepting DOE's application until six months following a proper LSN database filing by the department. If the NRC accepts an incomplete application, it will be difficult to meet the statutory deadline for completion of reviews, and adjudicatory hearing(s) and to reach a decision on granting a license for the Yucca Mountain repository in three to four years.

Congress Settles on Yucca Mountain Budget

The House-Senate conferees on the FY 2004 Energy and Water Appropriations bill agreed to $580 million in funding for Yucca Mountain-$123 million more than FY 2003. The amount is $11 million less than requested by President Bush, but the lead House negotiator reports that the approved amount is acceptable to the Bush administration. As much as $70 million could be allocated for spent fuel transportation, a key component to the Yucca Mountain project that has received little attention in recent years. Also included is a $5 million appropriation to the state of Nevada and local counties and $3.2 million for the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. Determination of the final amount resulted from a compromise between the $765 million approved by the House and the $450 million approved by the Senate in related, but separate, bills. The president signed the bill on December 1, 2003.

Yucca Mountain Repository Air Crash Information Outdated

Staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have told the Department of Energy (DOE) that information used in addressing the aircraft hazard issue at - one of the key technical issues (KTI) - Yucca Mountain is outdated. The department is required to present more up-to-date information before that issue can be closed. In a letter dated September 16, 2003, NRC staff stated that DOE had not provided a basis for assertions that ... "even under accident conditions a pilot would be able to avert a crash into the repository." The department is in the process of updating the KTI with an updated air crash frequency analysis report and an updated map pinpointing the sites of air crashes near Yucca Mountain per the request of NRC. The updated report should be published in March 2004.

Natural Zeolite Deposits may act as a Barrier in Repository

A study published in the November/December 2003 issue of American Mineralogist identified rock layers rich in zeolites beneath the planned Yucca Mountain repository site. Zeolite is a substance that potentially could absorb remnants of nuclear waste should it accidentally escape from the facility. The mineral, in the shape of fine, tan-colored grains found in cat litter, could act like a sponge, absorbing and releasing large amounts of water. Although in recent years there has been greater reliance on the engineered barrier and less on the geologic barrier, in the long-term, the predictability of the geologic barriers will be a factor.

Other News

Microorganisms and Uranium: The Dynamic Duo

Derek Lovley, a professor of microbiology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, discovered a family of iron-breathing microorganisms that may be the answer to the challenges posed by nuclear pollution. The iron-breathing geobacteraseeae is poisoned by oxygen, but thrives in underground and underwater environments, free of the "toxin."

Lovley and his team decided to test the iron-breathing geobacter against a different substance-uranium. The amount of groundwater in the United States that is contaminated by uranium was of interest to the biologist, so for the past two summers, he and his team successfully tested the bacterium in a Colorado uranium mine. Pumping acetate or vinegar-a favorite food of geobacter-into the ground caused a native population of bacteria to expand. When the microbes ran out of iron to breathe, they replaced their mineral of choice with uranium.

In breathing the uranium, the bacteria adds two electrons to the structure, making it insoluble in water. In the case of the Colorado uranium mine, the insoluble uranium falls out of the water supply, approximately 30 feet underground, rendering the toxic radioactive material inert and, in some ways, harmless.

Reid Aide to Be Nominated for NRC Post

As a result of a political bargain, Gregory Jaczko has been nominated to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Bush administration hopes the other vacancy on the commission can be filled by retired Vice Admiral John Grossenbacher. The president will name Grossenbacher as chairman if his confirmation goes through. Senator Harry Reid agreed to break his hold on executive branch nominees if Mr. Jaczko is selected by the White House as the Democratic nominee to the commission. Many former NRC commissioners spoke on behalf of Mr. Jaczko's nomination. One letter stated that his scientific background and policy experience would "provide credibility to the agency's review of the Yucca Mountain repository application."

Private Fuel Storage Hearings Postponed Until 2004

The hearing scheduled for December 2003 to address the potential consequences of an F-16 crash into Private Fuel Storage LLC's (PFS) planned spent fuel storage facility in Utah is expected to be postponed by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. Original analyses of the issue resulted in additional requests for information (RAIs), prompting PFS to conduct additional analyses. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff then issued a second round of RAIs based on the new information. The NRC is requiring that the probability of an air crash be less than one in 1 million per year. PFS has purportedly commissioned Sandia National Laboratories to perform some independent work on structural models. In addition, work performed by Sandia on the general subject of the effects of an aircraft crash may serve to provide the NRC with additional information on the PFS case.

Nuclear Industry too Focused on Fuel Economics

Jeffrey Merrifield, commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, recently stated that the nuclear industry is too focused on fuel economics, thereby pushing the fuel too hard. Along with an overall improvement in fuel performance during the past 20 years, there has been a noticeable increase in fuel failures in the past two years. The industry is cited as an indirect contributor to these failures due to a push for better fuel performance to support higher burnup, longer operating cycles, and power uprate endeavors. The commissioner thinks that, ... "both the NRC and industry need to consider additional research to determine how [to] get a better handle on new designs and materials that can reverse the recent increase in fuel failures."

Real Conditions Are Model for New Spent Fuel Analyses

Recent analyses funded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) show the risks and consequences of a spent fuel accident to be far less severe than was previously thought. The latest round of accident analyses, which have been in progress since mid-2002, are based more closely on actual conditions, using state-of-the-art modeling to examine the entire pool, not on only just a portion of it.

The analyses illustrated that spent fuel in the pool was more easily cooled than previous studies had indicated. The point of the study was to show the public a more realistic picture of what might happen under accident conditions. Previous reports had used conservative assumptions that provided misleading results when assessing the potential vulnerabilities to a terrorist event. The new studies being conducted are plant-specific and use real data. The studies show that, if spent fuel remains in pools or is moved to dry storage, the health and safety of the public are protected.

NFS Faces Fine for Losing Track of Nuclear Material

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) might levy a $60,000 fine on Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. (NFS) for a lapse in material control and accounting at its Erwin, Tennessee, facility. The type of material misplaced is defined in 10 C.F.R. Parts 70.4 and 74.4 that generally indicates material that is directly usable in the manufacture of a nuclear weapon. However, in its October 17, 2003, letter to the company, NRC did not specify either the material or the amount. The agency has acknowledged that the material remained in a secure area with security and safety measures in place.

With 30 days from the date it received the letter to either pay the fine or contest it, NFS is "evaluating" its options. The NRC's enforcement measures are wholly separate from the problem resolution. The enforcement measures are applied only after a problem has been fixed, and then only if the severity warrants. The severity of the NFS violation was at the second level of the four-level scale. NFS is seeking three license amendments from the NRC. It remains to be seen if the violation will affect their approval.

Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSI)

GE Completes RAI Response for Morris Renewal - On September 30, 2003, General Electric provided the remaining answers to NRC's RAI on license renewal for its Morrison, Illinois, ISFSI. NRC gave the company feedback on the proposed responses at a public meeting on September 17, 2003, but is currently performing a formal acceptance review. The original schedule assumed a single RAI, but it appears that another RAI will be required, rendering obsolete the initial February 2004 date for the final license issue. This renewal is NRC's first for an ISFSI and the only ISFSI using pool storage.

A schedule for the revisions was expected by NRC the first week of November. Many of the responses to the RAIs did not contain the level of detail presumed by the agency and, in some cases, the answers did not respond to NRC questions. Officials from GE Morris consented to supply more complete answers at an undetermined later date.

Surry License Renewal RAI - On October 6, 2003, Dominion Virginia Power submitted to NRC its response to questions on its license renewal request for the Surry ISFSI. The deadline for the response was September 12; at this time, it is not clear how the late response will affect the license renewal schedule. Dominion is seeking a 20-year renewal; the company also submitted a separate exemption request to extend the renewed license term to 40 years. This is NRC's first dry cask ISFSI renewal request.

Loading Finished at Palo Verde for 2003 - The spent fuel storage cask loading for Arizona Public Service was completed for the year in September. The full casks are placed on the Palo Verde storage pad. The utility plans to load approximately eight casks per year beginning in 2004.

Maine Yankee Seeks Icing Exemption - An exemption request was submitted to NRC by Maine Yankee on October 2, 2003. The request is a corrective action to address icing during winter cask loading activities. The requested exemption is in contest of a June 2003 notice of violation (NOV) issued by NRC relative to the utility's handling of the discovery of an icing problem during cask loading in February 2003. The NRC believes that Maine Yankee must come back into compliance, which may be achieved if NRC approves the exemption. The agency has stated that it will " ... give the request a high priority, recognizing icing conditions could occur this winter."

The ice encountered by Maine Yankee prompted NRC to issue a notice to all 10 C.F.R. Part 72 licensees and permit holders because the problem could be encountered at other northern U.S. ISFSIs that use free-standing, ventilated concrete cask designs. Recipients of the notice must determine its applicability to their facility, but are not required to take specific action or provide NRC with a written response.

San Luis Obispo County Raises Potential Hurdle for Diablo Canyon - The environmental assessment for Pacific Gas & Electric's (PG&E) ISFSI at Diablo Canyon is soon to be released by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board hearing process for the facility concluded on October 15, 2003, making the issuance of a license imminent. In addition to the NRC, however, the San Luis Obispo County planning commission has local permitting authority and is requiring PG&E to obtain a coastal development permit prior to construction.

A draft environmental impact report issued by the commission outlined changes to emergency plans and the design of the cask system to mitigate against the risk of a terrorist attack, two areas that fall well outside state jurisdiction. The NRC held that the potential for terrorist attacks does not need to be addressed in the licensing proceedings because the agency is addressing those risks with alternative measures.

The commission's report was issued for a 60-day public comment period and will be finalized based on those comments. NRC was undecided about whether the agency would comment. PG&E is formulating a response. The utility would like to begin loading spent fuel into dry storage at Diablo Canyon beginning in 2005, but has assured the NRC that its spent fuel pool would not run out of space until 2006. The yearly cask load is expected to be eight. PG&E has sought the ability to construct an IFSFI to hold a maximum of 140 casks.

In an October 30, 2003, Federal Register notice, the NRC determined that the construction, operation and decommissioning of the Diablo Canyon ISFSI " ... will not result in a significant impact to the environment." Due to the finding of no significant impact from the environmental assessment, the NRC is not required to perform a full-scale environmental impact statement. The agency will issue a safety evaluation report on the license application by the end of 2003 or sometime in early 2004.

Connecticut AG to Limit Size of Millstone ISFSI - Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, in a bid to maintain state control of Dominion's Millstone site, wants to limit plans for a spent fuel dry storage facility. At an October 16 hearing of the Connecticut Siting Council, the attorney general called "excessive and inappropriate" Dominion's request for approval of an ISFSI to accommodate 135 casks. The council's site certification for Millstone requires the company to apply to the council for approval of any significant changes, which include constructing an ISFSI. The attorney general's argument focuses on the fact that Dominion has legitimate storage needs for its Millstone facilities only until 2013. By that time, dry storage technology most likely will have improved, and the DOE nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain might be in operation.

Spent Fuel Cask Updates

Transnuclear Wins Progress Energy Contract - A fleet-wide contract with Progress Energy has been awarded to Transnuclear Inc. (TN) to provide recently redesigned dry spent fuel storage casks for two plants. The first plant, Robinson-2, needs the casks to be loaded prior to the fall 2005 refueling outage to maintain a practical operating reserve. The second plant, Brunswick, will have its 61BT canister upgraded in 2004 to accommodate hotter fuel with higher burnups for systems scheduled for delivery to the plant in 2007.

Hi-Star 100 Transport Amendment Issued to Holtec - The NRC-issued transport amendment gives Holtec International approval to transport Trojan spent fuel in the Hi-Star 100 transport overpack. The amendment allows the transport of the MPC-24E/EF PWR basket for intact fuel as well as a Trojan-specific MPC 24E/EF for all Trojan intact and damaged fuel and fuel debris. With the amendment, Trojan is cleared to decommission its spent fuel pool. The utility had promised the state of Oregon it would not do so until the loaded storage casks were transportable.

Published NRC Rule on High Burnup Nuhoms - On October 7, 2003, the NRC proposed to add TN's Nuhoms-24PHB high-burnup spent fuel storage system to its list of cask systems approved for use at reactor sites under a general license. Two separate notices were published by the NRC in the October 7 Federal Register-a direct final rule to take effect on December 22, 2003, unless significant adverse comments are received by November 6; and a proposed rule for addressing any significant adverse comments. If such comments are received, the NRC will withdraw the direct final rule to address the comments. The Nuhoms system was first placed on the NRC list of approved spent fuel storage casks in 1994.

NAC-UMS Enhancement Amendment up for Review - The NRC's Spent Fuel Project Office sent the commission's rulemaking branch a draft certificate of compliance (CoC) and safety evaluation report (SER) for an amendment to incorporate enhanced design features into the NAC-UMS spent fuel storage system. Many changes to the system will be made if the amendment passes. The system, which can hold 24 PWR or 56 BWR assemblies, is in use at Maine Yankee, Palo Verde and McGuire.

Holtec and NRC Discuss Thermal Analysis - Holtec met with the NRC on October 1, 2003, to discuss its response to a request for additional information (RAI) on the application it submitted to amend the Hi-Storm 100 spent fuel storage system. One topic discussed was changes the company had made to the original amendment request submitted in March 2002. During a closed door conversation, the two parties looked at an analysis Holtec had submitted that decreased the requested thermal limit from 40 kilowatts to 38 kilowatts after inconsistencies were identified in Holtec's methodology and the way it modeled casks.

A new NRC schedule for Holtec to complete its review will include another RAI due to the enormity of the changes in the initial RAI response. The NRC is anticipating that the review will be assigned a lower priority number because the original submittal was in anticipation of the needs of Progress Energy, which recently awarded a contract to Transnuclear Inc.

GNSI to Attempt NRC Licenses in 2007 - The U.S. subsidiary of a German utility-owned cask company, GNSI, told NRC staff that it will apply in 2005 for a storage license for the concrete and steel Constor system. An application for a transport license will follow in 2006. GNSI's plans include a fabrication and assembly shop in North America. The cask, which will come in both PWR and BWR versions, will undergo full-scale drop tests, the results of which will be used to finalize safety analysis reports for storage and transport.

2004 Will See Resubmittal of NAC Application - During the first quarter of 2004, the NRC will receive an amended application for NAC International's advanced Universal Multipurpose System. Details of the system were discussed in a proprietary session; however, it was disclosed that the system will have high capacities for the number of assemblies and heat loads. The company hopes to bid the system to utilities beginning in early 2004. NAC feels confident about the system concept and its ability to obtain a license in a timely fashion. When NAC originally submitted its application to the NRC, both Duke Energy and Arizona Public Service had expressed interest in using the 32-assembly system, but neither have immediate scheduling or pool space requirements.

Transnuclear Receives RAI - Transnuclear Inc. received a request for additional information (RAI) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in October. The RAI was on amendment one to the company's advanced Nuhoms system. The response deadline is mid-December. The NRC anticipates issuing a draft safety evaluation report (SER) and certificate of compliance (CoC) by April 29, 2004.

Complications for Point Beach as Rulemaking Slows - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) received "significant adverse comments" on the proposal to add Transnuclear Inc.'s 32PT to the list of designs approved for use under a general license. In response, the NRC's Spent Fuel Project Office withdrew the direct final rule. The agency had published both a direct final rule and a proposed rule in the August 19, 2003, Federal Register to add the new canister. The new timeline for approval is unclear.

Nuclear Management Company (NMC) had planned to begin loading the system at Point Beach in early 2004. Although officials from the company declined to comment on specifics regarding when Point Beach might lose core reserve, one official alluded that there might be some flexibility in the schedule. A portion of the comments focused on the level of review conducted by NRC, stating that the standards need to be updated and applied to new licensing applications.

The NRC expects to publish a new final rule around the third week of December. The Spent Fuel Project Office completed the technical review of the comments received on the proposal and is able to address them without making any changes to the licensing documents.

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