WASHINGTON, DC, August 7, 2012 (ENS) – Federal nuclear regulators today froze at least 19 final reactor licensing decisions in response to a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that spent nuclear fuel stored on-site at nuclear power plants “poses a dangerous, long-term health and environmental risk.”
In its ruling, the appeals court invalidated the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 2010 updates to the Waste Confidence Rule and also the Temporary Storage Rule and directed the commission to fully comply with federal law.
In response, the NRC today put a hold on nine construction and operating licenses, eight license renewals, one operating license, and one early site permit.
The court noted that, after decades of failure to site a permanent geologic repository, including 20 years of working on the now-abandoned Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, the NRC “has no long-term plan other than hoping for a geologic repository.”
Therefore, it is possible that spent fuel will be stored at reactor sites “on a permanent basis,” the court said.
In its order today, the five-member NRC said, “Waste confidence undergirds ....
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In hailing the NRC action in a statement today, the groups said that most of the 19 reactor projects are already “essentially sidetracked by the huge problems facing the nuclear industry, including an inability to control runaway costs, and the availability of far less expensive energy alternatives.”
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