[Senate Hearing 110-1252]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-1252
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION'S
LICENSING AND RELICENSING PROCESS
FOR NUCLEAR PLANTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR
AND NUCLEAR SAFETY
of the
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 16, 2008
__________
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congress.senate
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman
MAX BAUCUS, Montana JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri
Bettina Poirier, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Andrew Wheeler, Minority Staff Director
----------
Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
BARBARA BOXER, California (ex JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma (ex
officio) officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
JULY 16, 2008
OPENING STATEMENTS
Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware.. 1
Voinovich, Hon. George, V., U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio.. 4
Lautenberg, Hon. Frank R., U.S. Senator from the State of New
Jersey......................................................... 5
Craig, Hon. Larry E., U.S. Senator from the State of Idaho....... 6
Sanders, Hon. Bernard, U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont.... 9
Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma... 11
Johnny, Isakson, Hon., U.S. Senator from the State of Georgia.... 14
Alaxander, Lamar, Hon., U.S. Senator from the State of Tennessee. 220
WITNESSES
Klein, Hon. Dale E., Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission..... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 22
Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer......... 32
Response to an additional question from Senator Carper....... 40
Responses to additional questions from Senator Inhofe........ 42
Jaczko, Hon. Gregory B., Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission..................................................... 86
Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer......... 88
Lyons, Hon. Peter B., Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission 92
Svinicki, Hon. Kristine L., Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission..................................................... 93
Bell, Hon. Hubert T., Inspector General, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission Accompanied By: Anthony Lipuma, Deputy Assistant
Inspector General For Audits Mulley, George, Senior Level
Assistant For Investigative Operations......................... 114
Prepared statement........................................... 117
Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer......... 129
Response to an additional question from Senator Carper....... 130
Response to an additional question from Senator Inhofe....... 130
Christian, David A., President And Chief Nuclear Officer,
Dominion Nuclear............................................... 131
Prepared statement........................................... 133
Responses to additional questions from Senator Inhofe........ 143
Pietrangelo, Anthony R., Vice President, Nuclear Energy Institute 144
Prepared statement........................................... 146
Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer......... 158
Response to an additional question from Senator Carper....... 159
Responses to additional questions from Senator Inhofe........ 159
Webster, Richard, Legal Director, Eastern Environmental Law
Center......................................................... 165
Prepared statement........................................... 169
Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer......... 176
Response to an additional question from Senator Carper....... 178
Romm, Joseph, Senior Fellow, Center For American Progress Action
Fund........................................................... 187
Prepared statement........................................... 189
Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer......... 201
Gilbertson, H. John, Jr., Managing Director, Goldman, Sachs and
Company........................................................ 205
Prepared statement........................................... 207
Response to an additional question from Senator Boxer........ 210
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statement of Eastern Environmental Law Center.................... 221
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION'S
LICENSING AND RELICENSING PROCESSES
FOR NUCLEAR PLANTS
----------
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in
room 406 Dirksen Senate Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Carper, Voinovich, Inhofe, Lautenberg,
Cardin, Sanders, Isakson, Craig
STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER,
U.S. SENATOR ROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE
Senator Carper. The Subcommittee will come to order.
Senator Voinovich and I are pleased to welcome all of you
this morning, particularly our first panel of witnesses. Thank
you for joining us.
Today's hearing provides oversight on the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission's licensing and relicensing processes for
nuclear plants. Senators are going to have roughly 5 minutes
for opening statements, then we will recognize the Chairman of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and each of our commissioners
to offer their statements to our Committee.
Chairman Klein is prepared to give us a statement about 5
minutes in duration, and our commissioners, Commissioner
Jaczko, Commissioner Lyons and Commissioner Svinicki will each
have about 2 minutes to offer any additional thoughts that you
might have.
Following the commissioners' statements, we will have two
rounds of questions, and then we will ask our second panel of
witnesses to come forward and present and respond to our
questions as well.
A number of you, at least three of our witnesses on this
first panel, Senator Voinovich, Senator Craig, have been before
us any number of times. One of them looks, I don't recall
seeing one of the commissioners on the other side of this table
before, but I know that she is somebody that you have worked
with for a long, long time, and we welcome you and thank you
for joining us today.
As Americans face tough issues like global warming, like
air pollution, a sluggish economy and high energy costs, I
believe our hearing today on nuclear energy is more than
timely. By creating a strong nuclear industry we can help
reduce our growing reliance on foreign oil and unchain our
economy from the whims of hostile governments. We can also
reduce air pollution that damages our environment, harms our
health and contributes to global warming.
Nuclear power provides reliable power, and provides it
cleanly. Unlike fossil fuel power plants, nuclear power plants
do not emit sulfur dioxide, do not emit nitrogen oxide, do not
emit mercury, nor do they emit carbon dioxide. Over the past 12
years, the current nuclear fleet has prevented emissions into
our air something like 8.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide, 47.2
million tons of sulfur dioxide, and 18.9 million tons of
nitrogen oxide. These air pollution reductions equal lives
saved.
A recent statement by the U.S. Department of Energy says
that by the year 2030, America's demand for electricity will
grow by some 25 percent. Nuclear energy is a viable, carbon-
free option to help meet our growing electricity needs. In
these times of increasing unemployment, it is important to
remember that the nuclear industry provides good jobs for a
highly skilled American work force.
A recent Clean and Safe Energy report projected that a
nuclear renaissance would create about 38,000 nuclear
manufacturing jobs in the United States. These will be good-
paying jobs that could be filled by our soldiers coming back
home from Iraq and from Afghanistan, or by Americans who have
been recently laid off in our auto industry. In short, our
Country needs nuclear power. And luckily, new nuclear power is
on the way.
Over the past few years, my colleague and friend from Ohio,
Senator Voinovich--who just celebrated a birthday yesterday--
Senator Voinovich and I have worked closely, and he doesn't
look any the worse for wear, I would say.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. We have worked closely together in this
Subcommittee to make the nuclear renaissance a reality, and a
lot of other people worked with us. I believe we have made
significant progress. Every day, we are getting closer to
seeing a new generation of nuclear power in America.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or the NRC, is now to
receive nine license applications for the first reactors to be
built in this Country, I believe in more than 30 years. And the
Commission expects several more this year. It is expected that
34 new nuclear units may be built in the next 10 to 15 years.
In addition to these facilities, the current nuclear fleet
has increased its capacity and is extending its lifetime
through the Commission's renewable license process. Out of the
104 nuclear facilities currently in operation, the NRC has
granted roughly half of them an operating extension of 20
years. The other half are expected to request similar
extensions.
However, for the nuclear industry to be truly successful,
one word is key. I know the commissioners can tell us what that
word is, and that word is safety. Without a safe nuclear
industry, there will be no nuclear industry. There will not be
the reductions in SOx, NOx and mercury and CO2 that I talked
about. There will not be the 38,000 plus manufacturing jobs
that I talked about. There will not be the reduction in our
dependence on foreign oil that we discussed, or other fossil
fuels.
We are only as strong as our weakest link. That is why
today's examination of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is so
important.
We called this hearing to discuss the NRC's licensing and
relicensing processes for both old and new nuclear power
plants. We want to make certain that the NRC has the resources
as well as the right tools and structures in place to continue
to ensure nuclear safety. This includes making certain the NRC
does not focus on one process and forget the other. Getting
these processes right is crucial for the nuclear industry to
move forward.
Having said that, I look forward to working with my
colleagues, certainly Senator Voinovich, who helps to lead this
Subcommittee and has for some time, and one of our previous
leaders in the Subcommittee for many years, Senator Inhofe, who
has joined us, and Senator Boxer and many others, to continue
to ensure the safety of the nuclear industry.
Senator Voinovich.
[The prepared statement of Senator Carper follows:]
Statement of Hon. Thomas Carper, U.S. Senator from the
State of Delaware
At a time when Americans are facing high food and fuel
prices, I believe today's hearing on the Renewable Fuel
Standard is an especially timely topic. As many of you know,
the Renewable Fuel Standard is within the Clean Air Act--and
therefore under the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee. Although
this is the first hearing in the Subcommittee on this issue--I
assure you, it will not be the last.
First implemented in the 2005 Energy Policy Act and
enhanced in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, the
Renewable Fuel Standard is intended to promote energy
independence and protect the environment. The EPA must
implement the Renewable Fuel Standard to meet both these
objectives.
Of course, there are several other critical issues that
must be carefully weighed when considering the effectiveness of
the Renewable Fuel Standard. Increasing energy prices are
already placing a strain on families across this Nation. In
light of growing gas prices, there are a number of things I
believe can be done that will reduce financial burdens as well
as provide energy security:
1. I believe that oil and gas companies should drill for
oil on the 68 million acres of land that Federal Government has
provided. In addition, Congress has approved opening a 1.5
million acre section off the Gulf of Mexico to new drilling.
2. The lion's share of oil produced in the United States
should stay in the United States. Most of our oil should be
sold to Americans and consumed here, not shipped overseas.
3. Our nation must make a stronger commitment to reducing
our energy demands through conservation and investments in
renewable energy alternatives. I also believe we must develop
advanced biofuels that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and do
not divert crops from the food stream.
Increasing food prices have been blamed on biofuel
mandates. From leaked reports to published studies, the impact
of biofuel mandates and subsidies on rising commodity prices
ranges from 3 percent to 75 percent. In truth, we don't know
the exact impact on food costs. But we do know that technology
is coming online that will enable us to produce the biofuels
needed to support energy independence and reduce greenhouse gas
emissions without impacting food prices.
We must evaluate any unintended consequences of the
renewable fuel provisions. As academia, government and industry
continue to research these effects, this subcommittee will
maintain strong oversight.
Today, however, we will begin to review the methods the EPA
will use to evaluate the greenhouse gas emissions of biofuels
compared to traditional fuels. In addition, we will hear
testimony about advancements in next generation biofuels. It is
important that we take a close look at the State of new
biofuels, which will be based on feed stocks of waste materials
that are not competing with food sources.
I am excited about the investments and advancements DuPont
is making in renewable fuels. And look forward to hearing about
the results of the company's current pilot programs. We need to
ensure that facilities to manufacture new biofuels and the
infrastructure needed to deliver the products to the public
will be in place to meet the established target of 20 billion
gallons of advanced biofuels by 2022. The Renewable Fuel
Standard makes these new biofuels technologies a viable choice
for business.
Ultimately, the Renewable Fuel Standard must be implemented
in a way that positively impacts the environment and economy. I
believe this subcommittee must work together to make sure this
happens.
I am grateful to all the witnesses here to today, and look
forward to hearing your testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, U.S.
SENATOR ROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really
enjoyed working with you and Senator Inhofe on oversight of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and really appreciate the
cooperation that we've received from the Chairman and members
of the Commission. We dearly care about what you're doing and
the impact it is having on our Country.
Mr. Chairman, I was back in Ohio over the Fourth of July
weekend and talked with folks about high gas prices. They were
very frustrated at the high cost of gasoline and angry that
Congress does not seem to be doing anything about it. They told
me about how the price of gasoline is seriously affecting their
lives, from their ability to affordably commute to work, to
take vacations with their family. And because energy prices are
a form of regressive tax, it is affecting people who live on
the financial edge the most. Our standard of living in many
parts is going down in this Country because of the high cost of
energy.
A recent report by the FBR Research estimates that Ohioans
could spend 13.5 percent of their disposable personal income on
gasoline, electricity and home heating during the next 12
months. Ohioans are contacting me daily with a clear message:
increase our supply of oil and develop a comprehensive energy
strategy. Our constituents want us to lead this Country out of
this crisis. As a Nation, we must work to achieve energy
independence, but we must do so in a way that balances our
environmental objectives.
What we need is a rational attempt to create a bridge to a
carbon-constrained world that will give us the time we need to
develop technologies that will lead us to a cleaner, energy-
independent future without destroying jobs and ruining our
competitiveness during the transition. In this context, there
is a growing realization that nuclear power must play an
increasing role in our Country's energy mix. In his recent
book, The Age of Turbulence, Adventures in a New World, Alan
Greenspan writes that nuclear power is a major means to combat
global warming, and its use should be avoided only if it
constitutes a threat to life expectancy that outweighs the
gains it could give us. By that criterion, he believes that we
have significantly under-used nuclear power. I think that I
don't have to remind folks that we do have 104 nuclear power
plants operating today. They represent over 70 percent of the
Nation's emission-free generation portfolio, avoiding annually
680 million tons of carbon dioxide, compared with 13 million
tons for wind and a half million tons for solar. That is a big,
big reduction in carbon dioxide.
To be sure, we must have a greater efficiency, more demand
side management and more renewable energy, all of which play a
role in reducing the amount of carbon we emit. But renewable
energy sources like solar and wind are intermittent and
unreliable. The fact of the matter is that most of us know that
we have to do a much better job in terms of increasing nuclear
power in this Country.
It is interesting that the Lieberman-Warner bill, when EPA
looked at it, said that in order to get the reductions that it
anticipated, we would have to have a 150 percent increase in
nuclear power by 2050. We are talking 150 new nuclear power
plants. So what we are talking about here today is the license
renewal process, and also the new licensing that is going to go
on, it is so very, very important. I was very pleased to learn
that our Committee's efforts have helped the NRC to attract and
hire over 1,000 new employees since 2005, with a net gain of
over 500 employees after attrition, mostly due to retirement.
So you have looked forward to the human capital crisis that we
have and are compensating for it.
While the NRC's new licensing process will be a significant
improvement over the old process, a level of health and
skepticism remains by virtue of the fact that the new process
has not yet been tested. We want to find out how you folks
think that you are doing.
Since 2003, we have had eight NRC oversight hearings and
over a dozen meetings in my office with the NRC Chairman, and
now Dale Klein. Senator Carper and I are continuing with these
meetings since he took over the chairmanship of the
Subcommittee. So I think all of you know this, that the two of
us are dead serious about oversight. We care about what you are
doing, every aspect of it. We had a nice meeting recently with
Chairman Klein and laid out two or three things that the two of
us working together can do to help you do your job better. So
we are with you and we are anxious to hear from you.
Senator Carper. Senator Voinovich, thank you very much.
We are going to bounce over to the Democratic side here,
Senator Lautenberg, followed by Senator Craig. Senator
Lautenberg, you are recognized at this time. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, U.S.
SENATOR ROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Senator Lautenberg. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you for enabling me to participate in this Subcommittee
hearing, even though I am not an official member. I am an
official interested party, I can tell you.
First, it is critical to understand how essential nuclear
power is to my State. In fact, about half the energy coming
into New Jersey's homes and businesses is nuclear. I can't help
but think about a time not too many years ago when nuclear was
a dirty word. Now we face up to the reality of need and
understand that nuclear certainly has a place and a position
that will help us in other areas of energy resource.
But everyone understands, though nuclear is so important in
supply in my State, safety is the largest factor. One can't
help but think back to a time when a couple of nuclear plants
were built with billions of dollars invested and then abandoned
because safety couldn't be guaranteed. We don't want that to
happen.
So we will not trade safety for the sake of meeting our
energy demands. And that is a, I think, in all candor, that we
believe that these two requirements are available and should be
pursued in the name of safety. We need to focus on the
licensing and especially the relicensing process to make sure
that we are not putting any plants back online that could put
any communities in danger. The NRC, or the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, is tasked with overseeing this industry.
Communities rely on the NRC to strictly enforce the rules, make
sure that the plants are safe.
However, the NRC is currently not doing enough to follow
the rules designed to protect the communities nearby nuclear
power plants. Last year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
own Inspector General concluded that the Commission was not
performing due diligence when it came to license renewals. In
particular, the IG could not tell whether the NRC actually did
its job to audit, review and verify the safety applications it
received from the companies. In fact, I quote the Assistant
Inspector General, he said that ``The safety analysis was
probably done, it is just that we don't have sufficient
evidence to know whether it was or it wasn't done.''
Mr. Chairman, probably is not good enough. The communities
surrounding the Oyster Creek facility in New Jersey, the oldest
operating nuclear plant in the United States, cannot rely on
probabilities. The NRC must do better, the NRC has an
obligation to conduct real oversight of the Nation's nuclear
plants.
We also need the Commission to be more responsive to the
needs and views of the public. New Jersey's residents have been
forced to fight just to submit their views on the relicensing
of Oyster Creek. And no one should have to fight that hard to
make themselves heard when there is a nuclear facility in their
back yard.
Mr. Chairman, energy is on everybody's minds these days.
People are concerned about how they are going to pay for
everything, from gas for their cars to electric bills for their
homes. But we can't be rushed; we can't be hasty. We need for
the NRC to do its job, put safety ahead of speed when it comes
to licensing nuclear power plants. And we believe that the NRC
has the capability to do that and urge it to do just that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg.
Under the early bird rule, Senator Craig, you are next.
Senator Inhofe has asked you to go ahead and speak next, and
then we will go back to Senator Sanders and then to Senator
Inhofe.
Senator Craig.
STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY E. CRAIG, U.S.
SENATOR ROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Senator Craig. Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for holding
this hearing and allowing me to participate in it.
I appreciate the commissioners being with us. It is the
first time as a commissioner that Kristine Svinicki is with us.
She was with me a good number of years, working on these very
issues. So she brings to the Commission a variety of talents
that I think you commissioners are finding are a great asset to
your deliberations.
Mr. Chairman, I just returned from France and a week with
the nuclear industry of France, in which a country now receives
over 80 percent of its energy from nuclear. I went to a
reprocessing plant, I watched a new reactor coming up out of
the ground, literally, by construction. I went to a new fuel
enrichment plant that is being built, a footprint of one of a
kind that may be built in Idaho.
While I looked at the physicalness of all around me, most
of my questions were about public confidence. Because in France
today there is a high level of public confidence in their
nuclear industry and in their generating capacity. They not
only have a clean fuel, they are able to sell a clean fuel to
many other countries in Western Europe.
Now, I have said that to the Chairman, I turned to the
Commission. While I have heard the Chairman say and while I
have heard Senator Lautenberg talk about safety, I see that as
only one of three key ingredients to the success of a nuclear
renaissance in this Country. Because a renaissance speaks about
growth and revitalization, when in fact, our Country almost
killed the nuclear industry. It was a near wipe out, prior to
the Energy Policy Act of 2005, when we began to put in place
procedure again that would allow the NRC to do certain things.
And for our Country to realize, in a time when we wanted clean
energy, that there was in fact a clean energy source out there,
if we could do a variety of things to bring it back.
In fact, in this very room, we have debated climate change,
and much of that debate was based on the ability to switch to a
clean energy source, until the Committee found out, and members
of the Committee found out that clean energy source might not
be available or as readily available in a timely fashion in the
way that we expected it to be.
Gee, we were going to build 10 or 15 plants just in the
next few years. Not so, Mr. Chairman, not so at all. There are
several factors if that is to happen in the next 20 years. And
most of it, in part, rests right here with this Commission and
these commissioners. Not only is safety a factor, but so is
confidence. Confidence in the market, confidence in the
financial community that what this Commission does, they do
well, that safety is forefront. But it is also confidence that
they can proceed in a timely fashion and deliver these plans to
the street and these licenses to the street in a way that the
marketplace can anticipate them with confidence.
The other side of it is a utility having certainty,
certainty that the design that they are going to proceed with
has the confidence of the market and the safety of public
acceptance. So it isn't just one factor, Mr. Chairman, in my
opinion. It is a multiple of at least three. It is confidence,
it is certainty and it is safety.
How do you get confidence? Well, a major utility recently
tried to site a new greenfield operation in Idaho. Mr.
Chairman, a greenfield means it is not being sited near an
existing reactor. It is a new site, a new reactor. And in my
State of Idaho, there is reasonable confidence in the nuclear
industry. It is probably a pretty good place to site.
They spent millions of dollars, location, water and walked
away. The reason they walked away, because of the time line
they were being told it would take to bring them to license.
Now, I understand where we are headed, and I understand the
time it takes to re-gear, to employ, to build the confidence to
do the right things. And I look at this chart, Mr. Chairman,
and I see these time lines, way out to 2012 and 2013. And I
think this represents maybe four reactor designs.
What I hope this Committee can achieve, Mr. Chairman,
because I am not going to be here next year, or any year
thereafter, but I hope you work very closely with this
Commission and you work with them not just once a year but
maybe twice a year, that you achieve a process and a procedure
that has the public safety in mind, but the confidence of the
market and the certainty for the utility industry that they
have brought about at least three or four designs that are
there on the shelves. They have been basically licensed as a
design. And the responsibility beyond that then is the siting.
It is the site of integrity: is it geologically sound? Does it
meet the criteria? Does it satisfy the public? And this should
all be done in a very open public process. Transparency is
absolutely critical.
Senator Lautenberg said it, confidence, certainty, safety.
All is a product of transparency and openness. That was the key
thing I heard in France. When there was a question, they were
open, they were public about all that they do over there. As a
result, over the 20 years since we left the industry and they
picked it up and took our technologies and moved them forward
to where they are today, they have gained that level that we
are now attempting to rebuild.
It is worth doing, Mr. Chairman. It is a great source of
energy for our Country as baseload. We are going to build a lot
of new energies. But this is the one that will fuel the plants,
this is the one that will turn the lights on of industry. The
rest will simply supplement.
So thank you for holding this hearing. I probably took a
little too long. But I think for this Commission to understand
our urgency, but our willingness to be duly diligent, as they
will be in the future development of a ``renaissance''
industry, you have to get it right this time, and you can, and
we know how to do it.
Thank you.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
When I was, I think, a junior in high school, I took a
driver's education course. Most of us in the room have taken a
driver's education course. I was in Roanoke, Virginia. And we
were coming back from our first day out with our driver's ed
teacher, and it was one of those cars, I don't know what it was
like for you, but my instructor sat to my right hand side,
having a steering wheel and actually had an accelerator and
brakes on his side of the car.
We were coming back in, pulling back into the lane of my
high school, the drive-up lane. It was a new high school and
the driveway was just being constructed. It was in gravel. As
we turned in, I was probably going a little faster than I
should have for my first time out. And I meant to put my foot
on the brake and instead, as I made the turn onto the gravel
drive, I depressed the accelerator, and sheer terror for the
other students in the back seat. Fortunately, my instructor had
the brake, and immediately began applying the brake as I
applied the accelerator.
I think as we look ahead to this licensing, new licensing
process, we have probably one foot on the accelerator but one
foot on the brake. And we may need both of them. But we need in
the end to get this right, so if we are going to have the kind
of confidence that you alluded to, we will be able to move
forward.
Senator Bernie Sanders. Welcome, Senator Sanders, you are
recognized.
STATEMENT OF HON. BERNARD SANDERS, U.S.
SENATOR ROM THE STATE OF VERMONT
Senator Sanders. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Perhaps I want to pick up on the issue of confidence,
Senator Craig was talking about it, and maybe expressed it in a
little bit different light. It is clear that public safety must
be job No. 1 when it comes to nuclear power. But I must express
serious concerns about the aging fleet of 104 nuclear power
plants in this Country which, in my view, need much more
oversight than they are currently getting before we talk about
more nuclear power plants. In other words, we have to get it
right today.
In fact, I would be willing to bet that most people in our
Country would be disturbed to learn that the Federal oversight
role of nuclear power plants in our Country is currently quite
limited in scope. And they would be equally upset to learn that
Federal regulators rely so heavily on information that they get
from nuclear power plant operators as part of the whole
deregulation effort that we have seen since Ronald Reagan. And
some of the implications that we are seeing in some of our
financial markets today I think apply to nuclear power as well.
I think that many people just don't know what is going on,
and in my view, it is not what should be going on. But let me
use, in my State, we have one nuclear power plant located in
the southern part of the State, in Vernon. Let me use that just
as an example to illustrate what I consider to be a failure of
the NRC when it comes to oversight.
On August 21st, 2007, one of the cells of the cooling tower
collapsed. I think we have a photograph of that somewhere,
there it is. An interesting point is, and I don't want to alarm
people, this was not a safety issue. This was not radioactive
waste streaming out into a river. But that is the reality of
what happened on August 21st, 2007.
Question: given that reality, was Energy fined? Did they
pay any penalty for this glaring mistake, which was on the
front pages of papers all over the State? How much did they
pay? To the best of my knowledge, the answer is, they did not
pay one nickel in a fine for that mishap. In fact, as I
understand it, a ``non-cited'' violation was issued, which is
the lowest level of citation.
Then on August 30th, 2007, a week later, there was an
emergency shutdown involving stuck valves. And then just last
Friday, just last Friday, on July 11th, there was another
problem with the cooling towers. This time it is leaking pipes.
I think we have another photograph here.
Again, I don't want to suggest to people that this was
somehow a safety emergency. It is not. But this is again what
took place in my State just last week. And the end result of
that is, Senator Craig talks about confidence. Do you know
what, Senator Craig? When people see this, and they find out
that a company like Energy gets zero fine, confidence is not
terribly high. Because common suggests that what we understand
in this room, and I had the privilege yesterday of talking to
both Commissioner Chairman Klein and Commissioner Jaczko, who
made the point, and I understand it, these are not safety
issues. I understand that. But you tell that to people that
when this is going on, that a quarter of a mile away, you have
extremely toxic waste, you know what? Peoples' confidence in
the ability of that company to run that plant is not
particularly high. You can spend the rest of your life saying,
hey, don't worry about it, this is not a safety issue and
people have concerns. And you know what? I share those
concerns. It seems to me inexplicable that there are no fines
attached to this lack of oversight.
As I mentioned last October, I happen to strongly believe
that the NRC should broaden its oversight programs, whether it
be by supplementing the reactor oversight process with
independent assessments when called for by a State, similar to
what I have called for in legislation S. 1008, or by some other
means, so that we can assure the American public that the
nuclear power plants that we have aren't being guarded by the
foxes.
You want confidence? Then these guys are going to have to
have the power to assure the American people that these plants
are absolutely safe. What my legislation would allow is a
Governor or public utility commission to request an independent
safety assessment if they have a nuclear power plant in their
State. If a State is in the emergency planning zone for a
nuclear plant in the State next door, they certainly have an
interest in these issues as well. That is why my legislation
will allow them to make the same request.
Critical times at nuclear plants call for special
inspections, both to ensure the public safety but also to boost
public confidence. When a facility is seeing a power up-rate,
as was recently approved for Vermont Yankee and other plants
around the Country, that is a critical time. When a nuclear
plant is seeking to get 20 more years of life in an aging
facility, that is also a critical time. Or when a nuclear plant
has had a history of safety problems, that is also a critical
time.
These are the circumstances under which my legislation
would allow for an independent safety assessment. So getting
back to Senator Craig's point, you want confidence? Those are
some of the things. This does not provoke confidence.
Let me just move on a little bit. Some of my friends talk
about nuclear renaissance. I don't know, I don't know if
anybody in this room does know what the future of nuclear power
in this Country may or may not be. But I do know that we are
grossly underestimating the significance of energy efficiency
and renewable energy as we attempt to deal with the energy
crisis that we currently face.
I could tell you that in my State, when I was mayor, we
installed in my city of Burlington energy efficiency. And
today, in Burlington, 20 years later, we are not using any more
electricity than we did back then. And frankly, we can go a lot
further. That is more or less true throughout the State of
Vermont. So despite economic growth, if we are serious about
energy efficiency, we can cut back a great deal on the use of
electricity.
In terms of sustainable energy, I think the potential is
just extraordinary. Just last week, I was out in Nevada looking
at a thermal solar plant out there.
Senator Carper. I am going to have to ask the Senator to
wrap up. Go ahead and complete your thought.
Senator Sanders. I would just suggest that there are people
out there who think that within 15 years, 20 percent of the
electricity can come from solar thermal plants alone, excluding
photovoltaics, which also have tremendous potential.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Senator Sanders, thank you very much for
those thoughts.
Senator Inhofe, and then we have been joined by Senator
Isakson.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, U.S.
SENATOR ROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Everyone always
starts off by thanking you for having this hearing, but this
time, I really mean it.
Senator Carper. You mean you didn't mean it all those other
times you said it?
[Laughter.]
Senator Inhofe. To hear you talk about the needs and the
reality of where we are today and what we are going to have to
do, I associate myself with all of your remarks and those of
the Ranking Member, Senator Voinovich. I didn't realize until I
heard your opening remarks reminding me that it was over 10
years ago that I became chairman of this Committee. I remember
at that time we actually had Senator Voinovich, who was then
Governor Voinovich, come down and testify. So a lot of time has
gone by, and fortunately, some things are happening now.
But at that time, we had not had an oversight hearing of
the NRC in over 10 years. And I suggest to you that you can't
let any group, any entity in Government, any bureaucracy, go
that period of time without having oversight. That is what we
are supposed to be doing. So immediately after that, we started
setting deadlines and good things started happening.
And by the way, you would think there would be a pushback
from the bureaucracy. There wasn't. The chairman and every
member said, we have been wanting to have oversight for a long
period of time. Well, that time is here now.
So anyway, the U.S. electricity demand is projected to grow
by 30 percent by 2030. And within the next 4 years, according
to the North American Electric Reliability Council, six regions
of our Country may not have adequate electricity supplies to
ensure reliability. We need to have adequate, reliable and
diverse energy supply to power this great Nation of ours. As
has been said by everyone talking so far, all but one, anyway,
nuclear is going to have to fill a great part of that.
It was one of you who mentioned that the 104 nuclear plants
that we have that provide, it was Senator Voinovich, I guess,
that provide 70 percent of the emission-free, as far as CO2 is
concerned. But that is still only 20 percent of the whole mix.
And now with the new president of France, I can say nice things
about him, France has 80 percent. So I think a lot of good
things are happening. We are moving in the right direction.
Last September, the NRC began to review licenses for new
nuclear plants. This is a function the Commission has not
performed since the 1970's, with a revised rule that has never
been used before. The nature of the situation makes strong
leadership by the Commission extremely important. I am
concerned that the Commission is not providing the policy and
schedule guidance necessary for this process to proceed
smoothly.
In 2004, the hearing notice for the LES National Enrichment
Facility included a detailed schedule with deadlines for staff
to complete various task, and for completion of the hearing
itself. The notice also directed the hearing boards to exclude
certain issues from their consideration, issues that the
Commission would address directly. Accordingly, the license was
issued in 31 months, nearly exactly the amount of time that was
expected in the original schedule, which was 30 months, despite
never having previously issued a license for a uranium
enrichment facility. With the LES review as an example of
efficient decisionmaking, it begs the question of why the same
approach is not being used for new plant licensing.
Hearing notices issued for the current license applications
are generic and provide no such guidance or schedule. The NRC
staff vaguely indicates 1 year for having the hearing process,
but readily admits uncertainty about the time in the future.
Certainty is something we have been talking about in these
opening statements. Why the Commission is reluctant to ensure
schedule discipline for including specific milestones in a
hearing notice, I don't know.
Let me just say this. I really think streamlining is
necessary. We can do a better job than we are doing now, but we
are headed in the right direction. The other day we had what I
thought was a rather thoughtful news conference by T. Boone
Pickens, a person that I have been honored to know for a long
period of time. He talks about, you have to keep in mind when
we talk about energy, we are talking about two almost
unassociated, but they are associated, problems. One is the
energy crisis in America. We are going to have to have energy
to operate this machine called America. The other is the No. 1
issue with Americans, the price of gas at the pump.
What he was doing was saying, by diverting, although I
think that perhaps I would choose nuclear over the source he
was talking about, that would free up natural gas. And with the
technology we have right now, with liquified natural gas, with
compressed natural gas, and the price varies from State to
State, but the price in Oklahoma for liquified natural gas to
run your car is 99 cents a gallon. So he is talking about the
idea of freeing it up.
So it just seemed to me that this is the opportunity we
have in using nuclear to free up some of the other sources
until some of these really good things we look for in the
future, the renewables and other opportunities become a
reality, we can still bring the price down and do our job here
in running this machine that we call America.
So I am just glad that this Committee is going to stay
hitched on a bipartisan basis and make sure this gets done, Mr.
Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:]
Statement of Hon. James M. Inhofe U.S. Senator from the
State of Oklahoma
I commend Senators Carper and Voinovich for holding this
hearing today, continuing the tradition of rigorous oversight
that I started when I assumed the Chairmanship of this
Subcommittee over 10 years ago. Back then, the nuclear industry
was preparing to extend existing plant licenses and was very
concerned about significant uncertainty in the process,
particularly the time involved and the requirements necessary
to receive the extension. Since then, as a result of strong
oversight by this Subcommittee, almost half the fleet has been
approved for an additional 20 years of operation. It is our job
to ensure that the Commission is an efficient regulator, true
to its mission of protecting public health and safety, but also
able to issue sound decisions in a timely fashion.
U.S. electricity demand is projected to grow 30 percent by
2030. Within the next 4 years, according to the North American
Electric Reliability Council, 6 regions of our country may not
have adequate electricity supplies to ensure reliability. We
need an adequate, reliable, and diverse energy supply to power
this great nation of ours and nuclear energy is a vital
component. New nuclear plants can't be built within the next 4
years, but we need to ensure that new plants are being
developed promptly and safely, to meet our growing needs.
Last September, the NRC began to review licenses for new
nuclear plants. This is a function the Commission has not
performed since the 70's with a revised rule that has never
been used before. The nature of this situation makes strong
leadership by the Commission extremely important. I am
concerned that the Commission is not providing the policy and
schedule guidance necessary for this process to proceed
smoothly.
In 2004, the hearing notice for the LES National Enrichment
Facility included a detailed schedule with deadlines for staff
to complete various tasks and for completion of the hearing
itself. The notice also directed the hearing boards to exclude
certain issues from their consideration, issues that the
Commission would address directly. Accordingly, the license was
issued in 31 months, nearly achieving the Commission's original
schedule of 30 months, despite never having previously issued a
license for a uranium enrichment facility. With the LES review
as an example of efficient decisionmaking, it begs the question
of why the same approach is not being used for new plant
licensing.
Hearing notices issued for the current license applications
are generic and provide no such guidance or schedule. NRC staff
vaguely indicates 1 year for the hearing process but readily
admits uncertainty about the timeframe. Why is the Commission
reluctant to ensure schedule discipline by including specific
milestones in hearing notices?
Furthermore, key policy questions remain. Will the
Commission defer to State agencies on determinations of the
need for power? Will the Commission require licensees to
analyze alternative sites if they have chosen to add a new
reactor to an existing site?
The lack of clear schedules and resolution of key issues
will compound the growing pains that the Commission and the
industry must wrestle with as we end our 30-year construction
hiatus. These are complications we simply can't afford. The
Commission's review of licenses for new nuclear plants must be
as efficient as possible WITHOUT compromising safety. Keeping
the lights on is fundamental to our nation's energy security
and the NRC will undoubtedly play a critical role.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Inhofe.
Senator Isakson, welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON, U.S.
SENATOR ROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA
Senator Isakson. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. I
echo what Senator Inhofe said, thank you very much, this is a
very important and timely hearing.
I will be very brief in the interest of hearing from the
commissioners, except to make one statement and pose one
question I hope you will give us a response to in your allotted
time.
I am one of those that subscribes to the belief that the
solution to America's energy problem lies in a myriad of
products, one of which is nuclear. Others are solar, others are
wind, others are synthetic, others are clean coal. You can't
just pick one favorite and say it is the magic bullet.
But there is no question in my mind that without a robust
nuclear energy program for electric energy, we can never get to
where we need to get in terms of reducing carbon and having
reliable energy at an affordable rate for the people of the
United States of America. To that end, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission is in the cross-hairs at an interesting time and a
propitious time. You have received and are getting ready to
receive a number of applications. The nuclear renaissance that
hopefully will happen in the United States is going to be
triggered by your actions in terms of the processing time and
the byproduct of that processing.
It is critical that you have the resources. So in your
remarks, I hope you will address this question. First question,
do you have the resources to meet the demands of these two
processes that we see in front of us, of the pending and soon
to come applications for licensing, No. 1 and No. 2, can you do
it in a timely but reliable and absolutely committed to safety
process? The questions that Senator Sanders raised with regard
to safety are appropriate questions. And the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission is the key to ensuring that the confidence of the
public is absolutely 100 percent in this process, so we can
really have a nuclear renaissance in this Country that makes a
meaningful difference in our current energy dilemma. I will
appreciate your addressing that in your remarks when you get a
chance.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thank you. And Senator Voinovich wanted to
add a comment. Please proceed.
Senator Voinovich. I would just like to comment in terms of
the issue of safety. We had a real problem at Davis-Besse in
the State of Ohio. We had several hearings on that. There were
lessons learned for the industry and there were lessons learned
for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And we have continued to
followup on that to make sure that those lessons really were
learned.
I would also like to point out that the Nuclear Energy
Institute, NEI, really is concerned about safety. Because they
know if something happens that it is a reflection on the entire
industry, particularly at a time when we are talking about more
nuclear power facilities. And last but not least, the Institute
of Nuclear Power Operations, INPO, an industry organization
itself, from what I understand, they put each of these
management operations through the grinder to make sure they are
doing the job that should be done.
So the public should know that we are spending a lot of
time on oversight, and that some of these independent
organizations really do care about safety and the reputation of
the nuclear industry. Thank you.
And I would like to introduce, if you wouldn't mind, a
paper that was published in Nuclear News, from the American
Nuclear Society. It is one that I put together called Making
the Nuclear Renaissance a Reality, which gets into all the
various things we have to do if we expect to be successful when
launching it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thank you. Without objection, it will be
entered into the record.
[The referenced information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. We said our piece, and we will have some
questions here in a few minutes. Chairman Klein, you are
recognized for 5 minutes, each of your colleagues for 2
minutes. Try to stick roughly within those time constraints.
So far, no votes have been ordered, so it looks like for
this panel we have clear sailing. Chairman Klein, you are
recognized, please proceed. Your entire statement will be made
part of the record, as you know, and you are welcome to
summarize. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. DALE E. KLEIN, CHAIRMAN, NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
Mr. Klein. Good morning, Chairman Carper and Senator
Voinovich and distinguished members of the Subcommittee. We
thank you for inviting us here today to talk about the
activities that we have underway on the new reactor licensing
and the license renewal process.
As indicated previously, I would certainly like to
acknowledge Commissioner Svinicki as a new member of our
Commission. We certainly welcome not only her technical
expertise but also her knowledge of the Senate in terms of how
it conducts its business will help our communication as well.
I would like to thank you for your continuing support for
the NRC's activities. Because of your leadership and support,
the NRC has successfully made the transition from preparing for
new reactor technical reviews to actually doing them. At the
same time, we remain focused on our top priority, and that is
the safety and security of our existing licensees.
Let me begin with a few words about the power uprates and
license renewals. As of June 2008, the NRC has approved 119
power uprates which have added the generating capacity of about
5 new nuclear units. In addition, over half of the current
fleet of operating reactors have received or are in the process
of applying for license renewals.
As you know, a plant's initial 40-year license can be
renewed for an additional 20 years if technical and safety
requirements are met. An NRC Office of the Inspector General
report issued last September examined the effectiveness of the
NRC's license renewal safety reviews. While it was generally
positive, the OIG identified a number of areas for improvement,
and we are responding to those suggestions. Let me assure you,
the continued safety and security of all the operating reactors
in the U.S. is of utmost concern to the NRC.
Now let me turn to the case of the new reactors. The
Congress has provided the NRC with the resources needed to
successfully complete significant new reactor licensing
activities. To date, we are on schedule. However, significant
challenges remain. One involves the streamlined licensing
process that was established under the so-called Part 52 rule.
This assumes that applicants will be referencing NRC-certified
designs in their applications and that the NRC will receive
complete and high quality COL applications.
To date, we have received 9 COL applications for 15 units.
But only one of these five designs currently being referenced
is a certified design, and it is only referenced in one COL
application. This is for the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor at
the South Texas project.
In addition, the design certification applications and some
COL applications initially lacked information that the staff
needs to complete its review, while others are modifying their
applications. The result is that the early COL applications are
unlikely to achieve the complete benefits that the Part 52
process had intended.
We are of course working with our stakeholders to overcome
these challenges, and we hope that the streamlining that was
envisioned in Part 52 can be realized as we complete the
initial COLs and we finalize the design certifications of these
reactors.
Based on the energy information that is submitted by the
industry, we expect to receive 11 more applications for 16 more
units by the end of 2009. But while there are challenges, I
want to emphasize that the NRC is strategically positioned to
be ready for these new reactor licensings and the associated
workload. We created the Office of New Reactors, or NRO, to
handle the agency's activities. The office was aggressively
staffed, and as Senator Voinovich indicated, we have hired a
significant number of individuals. The New Reactor Office has
over 425 individuals.
With NRO in the lead, the NRC has taken great strides to
prepare for the new reactor licensing challenges. In my written
testimony, there is more detail given on these activities.
Let me conclude by touching on two points. First, it has
been suggested that there is not enough opportunity for public
participation, both in the COL application and the license
renewal process. We have provided you some handouts and we have
provided charts that also show in fact, that there are
significant opportunities for public participation, and we
encourage that public participation. Not only does this occur
at the COL stage, but it also occurs at the early site permit
and the design certification stages, and it is also true in the
entire license renewal process.
Second, the GAO recently did an audit of the NRC's
readiness to conduct the reviews of the COL applications. It
was generally positive. It acknowledges our existing
preparation and the quality of our plans. As I noted in a
letter to you, Senator Carper, on December 31st, the GAO
identified four recommendations and we are addressing those
concerns and issues as well.
While we are satisfied that we have in place a stable,
efficient regulatory process, the Commission is always looking
for ways it can improve. As we have heard Senator Carper say a
few times, if it isn't perfect, make it better.
I ask that my written testimony be entered into the record,
and we look forward to the opportunity to have questions,
keeping in mind that my general counsel is sitting behind me,
and she reminds me that there are certain renewal activities
that we will not be permitted to go into great detail, because
the commissioners will be in an adjudicatory role.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Klein follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that statement.
I also want to thank you for using acronyms sparingly. In
reading through the testimony, I don't know about my
colleagues, but I came across a couple of places where there
were as many as four acronyms in one sentence. We had a
Commerce Committee hearing last week, I had five acronyms in
one sentence. I am not real good on those acronyms. You guys
know what they are, I don't always. So I would just ask that
you continue to use those acronyms sparingly. Thank you.
Commissioner Jaczko, has anyone ever mispronounced your
name?
Mr. Jaczko. I think not at this Committee.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. When we get to our last witness, I am going
to ask Commissioner Svinicki to tell us exactly how she likes
to pronounce her name, because I have heard it pronounced any
number of ways. My staff was good enough to spell it out
phonetically--wrong.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. So I am going to ask you to educate us all
once and for all.
Commissioner Jaczko, you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF HON. GREGORY B. JACZKO, COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION
Mr. Jaczko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you and the other members of the
Committee today to discuss the process for considering new
reactor applications and the renewal of existing licenses for
nuclear power plants.
I agree with the Chairman that the safety and security of
the operating reactors and the other materials licensees is the
agency's priority. Therefore, we appreciate that the Committee
chose to include relicensing as well as the new reactor
discussion at this hearing.
Deciding whether to approve or disapprove an application is
just the first step of a process that includes oversight of
licensees to ensure compliance with safety requirements and it
includes taking necessary enforcement actions when violations
occur. Long standing problems, such as implementation of fire
protection regulations and emergency core cooling systems sump
screen issues at existing facilities must get resolved, both
for the benefit of those existing plants and for the NRC to be
able to exercise the most efficient oversight of any potential
new plants.
I do believe that applicants have more work to do to
improve the timeliness, quality and completeness of new reactor
applications if the NRC is going to be able to review them in
an efficient, and most importantly, I think, predictable
manner. I also agree with the Chairman that the NRC is well
prepared today to deal with the work of license reviews and if
applications are approved, regulating additional reactors.
Thanks to the support of this Committee and the Congress, the
NRC has been able to accomplish a tremendous amount of work to
buildup its own internal infrastructure and it is well-
positioned for the task ahead.
But I believe the NRC has more work to do. While we have
done a great deal to get ready, there are three remaining areas
that require the agency's continued focus to ensure consistent
oversight of any new reactors that may get built. We need
updated regulations regarding security, aircraft impacts and
waste confidence. I believe the staff has made progress in all
three of these areas. And in fact, the Commission directed the
staff to accelerate the development of the final security rule.
The Commission has just received the rule package for
consideration and has also made it publicly available. I intend
to work quickly to vote on this issue and to do what I can to
move it forward.
As I mentioned at the hearing in February, the agency is
still working on a final rule to require new nuclear power
plants to be designed to withstand the impact of an aircraft
crash. I remain hopeful that the final rule the staff provides
to the Commission for approval this fall will ensure the
requirements apply to any new plant built in this Country and
that it includes clear criteria for how the NRC will determine
compliance. Almost all of the entities that commented on the
proposed rule supported changes in both of these areas.
Finally, turning to the topic of license renewal
improvements, the agency has a solid license renewal program in
place. But I believe both the scope and the documentation of
the process could be improved. First, because the scope of this
program is so narrowly focused on the aging of components,
members of the public will likely always raise substantive
concerns about the license renewal process. I have proposed
that the NRC include a review of emergency preparedness
planning in relicensing, to reaffirm the safety finding
initially made when the plant was licensed to operate. I
believe that such a change would provide the NRC with the
opportunity to potentially enhance safety and certainly to
strengthen public confidence in the license renewal program.
Second, I believe the agency should look back at a few
completed license renewal safety evaluation reports these are
the major documents that we use to make our safety findings to
ensure the documentation issues raised by the Inspector General
are easily resolved. This effort, when coupled with more
thorough documentation of future relicensing proceedings,
should effectively resolve what I believe is an important issue
of public transparency in the license renewal process.
Thank you for the opportunity to make these remarks, and I
look forward to answering your questions.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Commissioner Jaczko, thank you very much.
Commissioner Lyons.
STATEMENT OF HON. PETER B. LYONS, COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION
Mr. Lyons. Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee,
thank you very much for holding today's hearing to discuss
NRC's licensing and relicensing processes for nuclear power
plants. These are important issues. They are fundamental to
earning the confidence of the American public in the safety of
the Nation's nuclear power plants.
I support Chairman Klein's testimony and I would like to
elaborate further on just two specific points. Regarding the
next generation nuclear plant, or NGNP, as I will refer to it,
as the Chairman noted in his written remarks, we expect to
deliver to Congress in August, jointly with the Department of
Energy, our licensing strategy for the NGNP as required by the
Energy Policy Act of 2005. This type of reactor offers specific
potential safety enhancements over light water reactor
technologies. It may serve to enable the use of nuclear power
not only in electricity production with enhanced efficiency,
but also as a source of process heat for many industrial
applications.
However, this advanced technology presents a set of
licensing challenges, such as the safety performance of new
types of fuel, to which the NRC must respond with new
regulatory research. As we continue to implement this joint
strategy with the DOE, the NRC will require resources that are
appropriately matched with DOE funding on this project.
In addition to our ongoing work on the NGNP, the NRC is
receiving an increasing number of requests for pre-application
meetings by potential applicants for small, so-called grid-
appropriate advanced reactor concepts, for potential sales to
developing nations and into markets with very small grids.
There are currently no U.S. licensees expressing serious
interest in building such plants. That has limited our
associated resource allocations.
In my own view, NRC engagement and research on the safety
aspects of these particular reactor designs is in our national
interest in helping to assure that safe reactor designs are
used abroad, as well as encouraging non-proliferation. I also
believe that resources for such research should not be derived
from fees paid by our existing licensees. Therefore, my
suggestion would be that NRC resources for activities such as
these grid-appropriate reactors are a matter for which I
believe congressional guidance is needed. And if this work is
to be endorsed by Congress, then I think specific funding in
that area will be important to the NRC.
I thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to address the
topics today and I look forward to your questions.
Senator Carper. Dr. Lyons, thank you very much.
Our first question for this panel will be to the last
Commissioner, and the question is, how do you pronounce your
name?
[Laughter.]
Ms. Svinicki. Mr. Chairman, similar to many Americans who
trace their ancestry to Ellis Island, the spelling you see on
the card before me is not reflective of the pronunciation.
There are what I call some phantom vowels that are missing.
There is not a unified opinion in my family, but Savenicki, so
you would insert an A between the S and the V, and then the
first I would become an E.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Svinicki. I think Commissioner Jaczko has some sympathy
with his J.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. I have no further questions.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. You are recognized. Thanks so much,
Commissioner Svinicki, welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. KRISTINE L. SVINICKI, COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION
Ms. Svinicki. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Voinovich
and members of the Subcommittee.
I would begin by taking this opportunity to thank each of
you and your fellow Senators for supporting my confirmation and
thereby making possible, as has already been noted, my
inaugural appearance before you today as a Commissioner.
Senator Craig, I may be a bit nostalgic in this moment for
the seat I used to occupy behind you, but I thank you for your
kind words.
When I appeared before the full Committee at my nomination
hearing, I pledged to each of you that if confirmed, I would
immerse myself in the issues and challenges facing the agency
and that I would commit myself fully to contributing to what I
view as the continued success of the Commission. In the
approximately 3 months since my swearing in, this has remained
my commitment.
Fresh from my experiences as Senate Committee staff, I was
no stranger to long days, but since arriving at the Commission,
I have never felt more keenly how few hours there are in any
given day. Partly this is a result of my approach to addressing
the ongoing work of the Commission, which is to research the
last few years of Commission action and deliberation, and to
try to set issues in a proper context before formulating my own
view. I am assisted in this by an agency staff that I have
found to be both highly skilled and highly eager to explain and
debate its work. Their commitment to public service, as
evidenced by their commitment to the work they do every day,
has impressed me deeply.
The NRC faces many challenges, already outlined by my
colleagues, but none, in my view, are insurmountable. What
success will require, however, is a sustained commitment to
continual improvement in our processes and an eye always to
safeguarding the trust that the public has resided in us. As I
continue to develop my ``sea legs'' at the Commission, these
two areas will be my principal focus.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't take this
opportunity to thank publicly the three gentlemen who sit
alongside me here. To a person, my fellow Commissioners and the
Chairman have been unfailingly gracious and supportive in
easing my transition, which has not always been an easy one, to
the NRC. They have welcomed me fully to their ranks. They have
been patient with my need to research issues and come up to
speed, and have extended every accommodation to me. I am
grateful to each one of them.
And Senator Isakson, just quickly, I support the Chairman's
testimony regarding the budgetary resources. Congress, as I am
coming to discover, has been extremely supportive of the
agency's budget requests. But please know that I don't take for
granted that support is ours to lose. We have to re-earn it
continually, so although we have had good support, we need to
continue to earn your trust and confidence.
I thank the Subcommittee for its support of the important
work of the NRC and this opportunity to appear. I will endeavor
to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
Senator Carper. Commissioner Svinicki, thank you very much
for that statement.
I live in Wilmington, Delaware, the northern part of our
State. As we drive south on State Route 13 or State Route 1
down toward our beaches, you can see off to the east a couple
of nuclear power plants. In fact, there are three of them that
sit over there in Senator Lautenberg's territory in New Jersey,
Salem and Hope Creek. I have lived in Delaware since 1973 when
I got out of the Navy and moved there. But those plants have
had a checkered past in terms of their reliability, in terms of
their ability to really be up and operate and provide
electricity on an ongoing basis.
I want to say roughly four or 5 years ago, Exelon was
invited by PSEG to come in an operate the facilities. And the
operating performance was improved dramatically. I cite them
today because I think they are a glowing example of what has
happened in the industry itself. We don't have to go back all
that many years for the ability to operate at full capability
was probably in the 60, probably 70 percent range. Today I
think it is a lot closer to 90.
So my first question for the panel, and I will just start
with you, Chairman Klein, we know there are 104 nuclear power
plants. We know that roughly half of them have applied for,
initially approved for 40 years, roughly half have applied for
and been approved, I think, for 20 years. How many of the 104
have actually been approved? How many are in process in terms
of renewal license requests?
Mr. Klein. We have approved 48, 17 are in process and we
expect more to come.
Senator Carper. All right. I spent a lot of my life in
naval aviation. I have flown in airplanes that were in some
cases as old as the crew members that were flying them. We have
still flying today P-3s, which I was a part of, we have C-
130's, which a lot of us have a lot of familiarity with, some
B-52s that are still out there flying. I know there are
concerns that we have from time to time about the safety and
reliability of those aircraft.
We have nuclear power plants that are 40 years old as well.
As we consider renewing them and letting them fly, if you will,
for another 20 years, or operate for another 20 years, it is
not unexpected there would be some concerns raised about how
safe can that be, just as, how safe can it be to fly a B-52 for
50 years or a P-3 for 40 years and so forth. The question I
have to start off with is, talk to us about those concerns that
we have with allowing these plants, they are large, complex and
aging, to allow them to operate for another 20 years, at least.
Why don't you tackle that to start off with, Chairman Klein?
Mr. Klein. Thank you, Senator Carper.
Obviously the issue of the operating plants and their life
extension is something we take very seriously. As these plants
operate, conditions change. So we have a very robust review
process to look at aging effects. That doesn't mean for our
employees, it means for the plants.
Senator Carper. Although some of your employees, like us,
are aging, I am told.
Mr. Klein. There are a few.
So we have a very rigorous program. I think what is
important to understand, and I think the IG referenced this in
their report, and you will hear from them on the second panel,
our technical details for which we look at during these license
renewal reviews is very robust. Where we needed to make
improvement, and we are making improvement, is on the
documentation. In general, we spend over 10,000 hours to look
at a license renewal application. So it is very rigorous, we
look at it, we hear from the public and we try to communicate
in an effective way.
So public confidence, communication, explaining what we do,
how we do it, is very important to us.
Senator Carper. Dr. Lyons, in following up, how long does
this process usually take for renewals? Just answer that
question in your comment you are going to give now.
Mr. Lyons. The process is typically 22 months. We have had
some shorter than that. It also depends on whether there may be
hearings. But 22 months is our target, and that has generally
been met.
And may I comment briefly on what the Chairman just said?
Senator Carper. Sure.
Mr. Lyons. To follow your analogy of planes that have been
around for some time, those planes, at least I hope it is true,
and you can tell me if it is, have also been the subject of
continuing oversight, continuing maintenance and continuing, I
hope, replacement of components as that became necessary. So in
the same sense with nuclear power plants, they have been
subject to that continuing oversight, continuing maintenance by
the licensee, subject to our oversight, and many of the
components have been replaced over that period of time.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
I have more questions, but I am going to yield to my
colleagues for some questions. We will come back for a second
round. Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Klein, the NRC has had several months to review
the first set of COL applications. Do you see anything that
might jeopardize, and I would be interested in hearing from the
other commissioners, that would jeopardize the agency's goal of
completing reviews within three and a half years, which seems
to me to be a very long time. I don't know what it takes,
Senator Craig found out. How long does it take them to go
through an application over in France? Did they get into that?
Senator Craig. No, we did not talk specific schedules. It
depends, of course, on the design and the standardization.
Senator Voinovich. The other thing is, it looks like we are
going to have a continuing resolution that may not get done
until February of next year. Does that have any impact on what
you are trying to get done?
Mr. Klein. Senator Voinovich, at this point, we see nothing
that is insurmountable, as Commissioner Svinicki indicated in
her testimony as well, that would prevent us from meeting our
obligations. What we are learning as we work through these
combined operating license applications is that we are getting
better as an agency articulating what we want to see, and the
applicants are getting better in their response. So we are
seeing the quality of the applications and the completeness
improve. So we are seeing the processes working. We are taking
lessons learned as we articulate what we need and the
applicants are doing better in terms of what they submit. So I
think overall it is a positive story.
Regarding the budget issue, a continuing resolution is
challenging for us, because as you know, the Fiscal Year starts
October 1. I am now starting my third year at the NRC and we
have never received a budget on time. It makes our planning
difficult. And we will have some impacts, if the continuing
resolution goes beyond February or March. We are planning for a
continuing resolution. We can read the papers as well as you
all can. So we are planning on a continuing resolution. We are
trying to prepare for it. But if it extends beyond February or
March, we will have some challenges in meeting our activities.
What that will mean is that we will not compromise safety
on that existing fleet. So what will suffer are the new things,
which means license renewals, power uprates and the new
reactors. We will have to prioritize.
Senator Voinovich. One of the things, I had the impression
that the designs were kind of cookie cutter, that they had been
used in other places. I understand you have approved one design
already. But then there are another two of them that are being
used in other places in the world. Then you have two more
designs that are brand new. Does that pose a real problem with
you in terms of the timing?
Mr. Klein. Senator Voinovich, it is a challenge. What we
had expected as we went through the combined operating license
aspects is that the design certifications for these various
vendors would be complete. Obviously we have essentially
completed the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor application and
the Westinghouse AP1000 design has been approved, but we are
currently reviewing an amendment to that design. And we are
reviewing the ESBWR, Areva, and Mitsubishi's design.
So what Senator Craig had observed in France is they have a
much more standard process in their country than we have in our
Country. We are free and open. Therefore, we will have more
vendors providing reactors. I think what we will have to
address as we go through the license review process, we will be
doing things in parallel that we expected to do in series. But
we will work with the utilities and the stakeholders to make
sure we do it right. No license will be granted until we are
confident that it will be safe and complete.
Senator Voinovich. Any comments?
Mr. Jaczko. Senator Voinovich, if I could add a few
comments. I would perhaps, on the first question of if there
are issues that I see jeopardizing the schedule, I would say
that there are several, of the five designs that we are looking
at. Three of them I would say right now would present
challenges for us to complete a review in three and a half
years, in the time period that we have talked about. With the
AP1000 design, there are some outstanding issues that I
referenced in my opening testimony about sump screen design.
That is an issue that the staff is working on right now that
may present some challenges. Until we have complete
information, we can't necessarily be sure when we will be able
to complete that part of the review. So that may have an impact
on our ability to get that design done. And that design is used
by a number of the applicants that we are looking at in front
of us.
There are issues with one of the applicants that is
referencing the AP1000, some issues again with incompleteness
of information that may present challenges to us reviewing that
application in a predictable manner. The application that the
Chairman referenced related to the ABWR design, we have had
some challenges with the vendor that is supporting that
application. The applicant had to change the vendor, so that
has caused a delay in our ability to review that application.
The General Electric ESBWR design also came in with a
modification recently to that design. The staff right now has
not been able to publish a new schedule for when they would be
able to complete the review of that design. So that may have
impacts later on then on the applicants that are referencing
that design.
So those are all uncertainties that could create risks from
the standpoint of the time it will take to review those
designs. And just a specific comment on the continuing
resolution, one of the issues that has come to my attention for
new reactors in particular is how we treat new activity under a
continuing resolution. Generally, the language prohibits the
agency from engaging in any new activity. And it is unclear to
me at this point, but there has been some discussion about how
we treat new contracts that we might need to issue for new
reactor application reviews. If that is considered to be a new
activity, then under a continuing resolution, we wouldn't be
able to initiate some of those contracts. So that again may
create some specific challenges with regard to reviewing some
of the new reactors under a continuing resolution.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Senator Lautenberg.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you all for your testimony and
the work that you do. The agency obviously has great
responsibility, and particularly pronounced since the search
for other sources to energize our Country are so much in
demand.
Dr. Jaczko, the NRC Inspector General's 2007 report pointed
out that the NRC didn't even keep records of their reviews of
license applications. Is that possible? And how important is
that?
Mr. Jaczko. I think, Senator, that is an issue we need to
go back and review and audit, to make sure that we understand
the importance of that information. But what the Inspector
General found was that when our teams go out to audit the
information that they have in the application to confirm the
programs and the information was accurate, the notes and some
of the information that they collected onsite they didn't
necessarily bring back with them to complete the review. So
they would take the notes, they would have conversations with
individuals there and then they would formulate their
conclusions. And those conclusions would be reflected in their
safety reports.
So what I think we need to do is we need to go back and
just verify, for the public ultimately, so that they are clear
how we made those decisions and how we came to those
conclusions. I think that will probably involve----
Senator Lautenberg. That is not very reassuring.
Dr. Klein, is that detail critical in the evaluation? Is
the IG correct in raising this as a point of some significant
concern?
Mr. Klein. I think again, as Commissioner Jaczko indicated,
there is no evidence that the technical review was not done,
the IG will discuss this issue on the second panel, and it is
probably best for you to ask them that question. But what they
pointed out is an area that we are addressing, what kind of
notes and documents do we keep for record. It is no different
than normal inspection activities, and everyone has to decide
what they keep and what they discard. The IG pointed out that
we should keep more complete records. It doesn't imply that we
didn't do our job. But we are re-examining the kinds of records
we keep.
And as Commissioner Jaczko indicated, sometimes there is
proprietary information that a company has. We look at that
information but we don't necessarily bring copies back.
Senator Lautenberg. But the public is certainly entitled to
be aware of the fact that these data are not being furnished as
they should be. I am concerned about the fact that, well, it
isn't quite where it ought to be. How important is it that
these review details be available?
Mr. Klein. I think, again, what we looked at and what the
IG looked at was, again, they found no weakness in our
technical review. What we found was a weakness that we are
correcting related to the documentation and the retention of
the information.
Senator Lautenberg. That is like the audit trail. It ought
to be up to date.
I was concerned before when the Chairman was going through
a comparison of aging parts of the world, talking about B-52
and so forth. I was afraid he was going to get to Senators and
say, all right, so there are replacement components that you
can put in there, but nevertheless. It wasn't very comfortable.
[Laughter.]
Senator Lautenberg. During the Oyster Creek relicensing,
the NRC did not initially insist on a sophisticated three-
dimensional analysis of the structure of the dry well. How can
the public have confidence in NRC's relicensing process when it
took prodding by a non-governmental agency and the company's
voluntary action to use the best technology available?
Mr. Klein. Unfortunately, the Oyster Creek issue is before
the Commission. So the Commission can't talk in a lot of
details, because we will be in an adjudicatory role.
So let me just talk in general about the confidence and the
communication of how we do our license renewal. We do use
technical input. We also expect and we appreciate independent
input on things we can do better, and we continue to ask if
there are things we can do better.
Again, as I indicated earlier, when we go through the
license renewal process, it is a very technical and very
involved process taking over 10,000 hours. The public does have
an opportunity to participate in that process. Unfortunately, I
cannot talk specifically about Oyster Creek.
Senator Lautenberg. I will close with this. The public is
so skittish. Have you seen an accelerated rate of problems as
these plants age? And why, if we had to look at the accident,
the alarm rate that does come in the field, is it worthy of the
concern that the public seems to exhibit? Or can we say that
new technology, especially with the new plants, that new
technology will make these plants absolutely safe, more
efficient? Can we give any kind of an endorsement that would
say to the public, OK, maybe we can bring the older ones up to
snuff, but we have designs that now assure safety, no matter
what?
Mr. Klein. As Commissioner Lyons indicated, as plants age,
a lot of the components are continuously replaced and
modernized and upgraded. So when you go through a plant that
has been in operation for a number of years, you will see a lot
of new components, new upgrades, new technology, new
techniques.
I think from a public perspective, one of the advantages
is, and the industry can talk more about this, the plants are
running at a higher capacity factor and running a more reliable
operation as people learn more about the operational aspects.
What we typically see is high public confidence, and when we go
out and hold hearings, in general around the nuclear plants,
people are confident, their friends, neighbors and families
work there, they go to church there, they go to school. So
these are people in the communities that work in these plants.
So in general, what we have seen is confidence in the
community around the plants is pretty high. Because the
communities are the ones that work and operate these plants. So
we have not seen any negative trends.
Senator Lautenberg. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Senator Inhofe.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We are getting bogged down in so many details here. Those
of us who are not as familiar with these processes we are
looking at, if you could help us out a little bit. We are
talking about two different things: the licensing of new
applicants and then re-applications, licensing re-applications.
Chairman Klein, in my opening statement I said that the hearing
notice for the LES National Enrichment Facility included
detailed schedule and policy guidance. Since that approach
clearly instilled schedule and discipline in the process, I
would first ask if the Commission is using that approach. I
don't think they are, so I would ask why not.
Mr. Klein. It turns out we did learn from LES, and we
incorporated that in our processes. We modified a part of our
regulatory structure called Part 2, which is not Part 52, but
it is Part 2 of our regulatory framework, where we do have
milestones and schedules outlined and available. So we knew in
terms of this new reactor licensing wave that was coming
forward to us, so we do have in our regulations in Part 2
milestones and objectives. So it is there, and we will provide
that to you.
Senator Inhofe. That is good. When you mentioned in your
opening statement that the time, the hours required for a re-
application were 10,000 hours, I believe you said, I asked my
staff what it would be for a new application. They looked it up
and said between 60,000 and 80,000 hours. Those of us, I think
almost all of us up here in our opening statements said our
concern is that we get there and get there quick. So we're all
concerned about streamlining, to the extent that we can do a
better job and meet the best guidelines.
Senator Isakson asked the question of one of you, I don't
remember which one, if we do have, if the resources that are
there are going to be adequate. What I wouldn't want to happen
is to find out when we are having a hearing 6 months from now,
well, we could have made these guidelines and these benchmarks,
but we didn't have the resources. So I would like to have each
one of you responds as to, do you think right now with what you
have, do you have adequate resources to try to meet these
expectations of the Committee?
Mr. Klein. Senator Inhofe, I believe on the resources issue
we always try to be prudent and spend our funds wisely. But we,
I believe, have hired, trained and held our staff accountable
and laid out our clear expectations. At this point, on both
license renewals and on new license reviews, we believe that we
have the funds, assuming the budgets are passed, for 2009, that
we will have the budgets that will meet those obligations. If
we have to operate on a continuing resolution for the entire
year for 2009, we will have difficulties.
Senator Inhofe. That is a good point to bring out. Far be
it from me, being a conservative, to try and push it even to a
higher level in terms of the expenditures. But we do, we just
want to make sure that you are not going to come back later and
say you didn't. That is a good thing to bring out on the CR.
Mr. Klein. The other aspect I would like to point out on
the efficiency is that we will, being a conservative regulatory
body, we will be prudent and cautious as we go through these
first phases of design certifications and the first COLs. What
we expect to see, after we go through that, we definitely
expect to have lessons learned and become more efficient with
no compromises.
Senator Inhofe. I don't think anyone would disagree with
that. Is that generally the feeling of the rest of the
commissioners?
All right, Commissioner--yes, Dr. Lyons.
Mr. Lyons. If I may just add, I certainly agree with the
Chairman on the adequacy of the resources as planned and
potential concerns on the CR. However, I think we should also
mention that if we talk about the Yucca Mountain application,
we are quite concerned that we do not have adequate resources
by a substantial amount, depending on whether the House or the
Senate versions might eventually be enacted. There may be a
substantial shortfall.
Senator Inhofe. All right, and Commissioner Jaczko, first
of all, let me apologize to you. We had an appointment set up,
and then all of a sudden, I had to be on the floor. So you met
with my staff instead of with me, and I regret that. As I
recall, during your confirmation hearing, I was the one who
initiated the idea that we need to be talking. So we will make
sure we get back on that track.
Mr. Jaczko. I appreciate that.
Senator Inhofe. The National Academy of Sciences report
issued last November recommends shortening the review time for
licensing applications to 3 years. As I understand in your
opening remarks, you said that the time that you folks have is
a little bit longer than that, it is some 42 months plus
Commission action, which would be three and a half to 4 years.
You were reluctant to think you could even keep that schedule,
let alone 3 years. Is this your position?
Mr. Jaczko. I believe right now there is potential for
challenges with that. I think we haven't necessarily seen the
completeness and the quality on the applications that we are
looking for. If you look at some of the schedules that the
staff has published, there are important milestones that they
have laid out when they need to see information from
applicants. And there have been challenges with applicants
meeting some of those milestones. As a result, some of those
schedules may not be met. I think that is part of this process.
I think as the Chairman has indicated several times, the
new reactor licensing process was generally envisioned to have
a complete design that an applicant would literally almost pull
off the shelf, they would have an environmental review that was
completed that they would pull off the shelf, and then they
would marry those two together in a license application. In
doing that, you would have a very efficient and a very orderly
way to get to the resolution on the remaining issues.
Right now we are trying to do all those things at once,
which is allowable under our processes, certainly. But it is a
little bit more unpredictable and it has a lot more moving
parts that can depend on one piece crucially. And if some of
those other pieces are delayed, then we will have challenges.
Senator Inhofe. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. But for
the record, I would like to get a response from the other
three, not now but for the record, as to the recommendation on
that 3-year time period.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. And if you would all respond for the
record, that would be much, much appreciated. Thank you.
[The referenced information was not received at time of
print.]
Chairman Klein: Our current combined operating license
(COL) application reviews will exceed the 3-year timeframe
recommended by the National Academy of Sciences. I believe our
initial reference plant COL reviews will take closer to 4 years
due to the first time use of our Part 52 combined licensing
process, ongoing design certification reviews, and needs for
additional information. As the NRC completes its reviews of the
reference plant COLs, the process should become more efficient
and move closer to the suggested 3 year timeline. We will
continue to improve our process and use lessons learned to
become more efficient without compromising our core values.
Commissioner Lyons: I appreciate the thought and analysis
that the Academy gave to this subject. The NRC will continue to
do our best to be an efficient as well as effective regulator.
We have not yet issued a construction and operating license
pursuant to 10 CFR Part 52, which is the focus of the Academy's
recommendation. Therefore, currently we are in somewhat of a
`learn as we go' mode. The original estimates for our review
schedule were based on our historical experience with 10 CFR
Part 50 licensing, and we needed those estimates as inputs to
our planning, hiring, and budgeting processes. However, there
are a great many factors that will influence the actual
schedules, not the least of which is the quality and
completeness of the submitted applications. We will most
certainly continue to improve our efficiency and effectiveness
as we go through this process to the actual issuance of a Part
52 license.
Commissioner Svinicki: As was experienced in the agency's
license renewal reviews, over time, efficiencies can be gained
through the resolution of generic issues and increased
knowledge of the processes. Consequently, I expect that as
applicants and the NRC staff become more familiar with the
issues and challenges both technical and procedural related to
reviewing new reactor applications, the agency will be better
able to maximize efficiencies leading to shortened review
times, while ensuring a stable and predictable process.
Senator Carper. Senator Sanders, and we have been joined by
Senator Cardin. Welcome.
Senator Sanders. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have about five
questions I would beg brief responses, if I could. Let me
begin, Chairman Klein, with a request. The State legislature
and the Governor have formed an independent panel in Vermont to
try to understand how the State relates to Vermont Yankee.
There is going to be a meeting tomorrow in Montpelier. There
has been a request, as I understand it, from the NRC, to get a
representative there to help this panel deal with very
complicated issues. Can I have your commitment that you will
send a representative to Montpelier tomorrow?
Mr. Klein. I certainly would expect, if the State would
like us to be there, we will have a representative.
Senator Sanders. I believe that is the case. Do you think,
then, we can have a representative there?
Mr. Klein. Yes.
Senator Sanders. Thank you very much.
Let me ask Dr. Jaczko, as I mentioned earlier, this took
place last year. And this was on the front pages of every paper
in Vermont, great concern, I get many, many e-mails on this
issue. What was the fine that Entergy paid for this mishap? How
many millions of dollars was that?
Mr. Jaczko. This did not fall under the part of our
enforcement where we issued a fine. So there was no fine, I
believe.
Senator Sanders. There was no fine at all. Do you think
that the American people would be a little bit surprised and
concerned that the management of a major nuclear power plant
paid no fine for this mishap? Do you think they would say, gee,
we think there is something a little bit strange there?
Mr. Jaczko. I think generally the public views issuing
fines as synonymous with enforcement action. The staff, when
they did review this, found that the licensee had not complied
with some of our regulations in regard to keeping up with
information in the industry about the ability of this kind of
problem to fail. The enforcement action we then took was part
of a process where we don't issue fines. And I think----
Senator Sanders. Well, I would say, on behalf of many
millions of people, I think they would be very surprised that a
mishap of this scope ends up with no fine at all on the part of
the managing company. Which raises a question also about
whether the NRC in fact should be actively inspecting all
aspects of a nuclear power plant, rather than just the core
safety issues. That is another issue I would like to get into
in the future.
Let me just raise another issue. I was glad Dr. Lyons
mentioned a magic word that I don't believe had been mentioned
earlier, it is called Yucca Mountain. Right now, we have a
number of plants, including Vermont Yankee, which have very
lethal radioactive waste which is now being deposited locally.
That was never the intention.
Now, my friends may disagree with me or know more about
this than I do, but I have every reason to believe, or at least
strong reason to believe that Yucca Mountain as a repository
for nuclear waste will never going to happen. We have spent
billions of dollars on it, it will never going to happen. There
are people here talking about the construction of dozens of
more nuclear power plants. We don't have a place to deposit the
waste. Somebody please tell me what sense that makes to the
American people. Dr. Lyons?
Mr. Lyons. From the standpoint of the safe storage of spent
fuel onsite, I have high confidence in dry cask storage, as
does the agency.
However, I think your question is, ``Is that appropriate
national policy?'' That is not something that the NRC should be
deciding. In other words, I don't think the NRC should be
deciding whether storage, albeit safe, at plants is
appropriate.
Senator Sanders. But you may have high confidence in it,
and it is a technical issue which I am not prepared to argue.
But clearly, that was not the original intention. The original
intention was not to have dozens of locations around this
Country where we are storing very lethal waste with a half-life
of thousands of years.
Mr. Klein. Let me just comment. The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission just received the application for Yucca Mountain,
and we will go through a technical review.
Senator Sanders. It will go through a technical review. But
I happen to know both Senators from Nevada who are not terribly
sympathetic about that application.
Let me ask my last question. We have heard, staff told me
that at a meeting with the NRC it is projected that the cost of
a new nuclear power plant could be as high as $20 billion, cost
of going up. Have there been independent studies to figure out
what the value in terms of energy savings or energy production
would be, using that $20 billion for energy efficiency or
sustainable energy? In other words, $20 billion is a hell of a
lot of money for a nuclear power plant. How does that compare
to investing in energy efficiency?
Mr. Klein. This is not an area that as the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission we would get into. We typically do not
put a lot of value on economics and where people should invest
money. Our charge is safety, security, protecting people and
the environment. So that is not our area. While we may have
opinions personally, it is not something that the NRC does.
Senator Sanders. Am I correct in understanding that a new
nuclear power plant could cost as much as $20 billion? Is that
within the ball park?
Mr. Klein. I have not heard numbers that high.
Senator Sanders. Anyone else want to comment on that? Dr.
Jaczko.
Mr. Jaczko. Generally there would be estimates, I would
say, of anywhere from $6 billion to $10 billion right now,
depending on the size, for a single unit. So a site that might
have two units could get into that.
Senator Sanders. Six to ten for a single unit is what we
are hearing?
Mr. Jaczko. Yes.
Senator Sanders. Dr. Lyons.
Mr. Lyons. Again, I would agree with the Chairman, that is
simply not our business. Our focus has to be on the safety, not
on the cost.
Senator Sanders. Fair enough. But it is our business, $20
billion or $10 billion is a heck of a lot of money. We have to
make sure that we are investing it in the best way in terms of
energy in America, whether it is efficiency or producing new
types of energy. That is my only point.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. That is a good question to ask, and it is
one you may want to consider offering to our next panel.
I think Senator Craig is next, if I am not mistaken, then
to Senator Cardin and Senator Isakson.
Senator Craig. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and to
all of you again, thank you for your responses to the different
Senators. I will try not to travel the same track, so Dr.
Lyons, I will go directly to you and comments you made about
NGNP and the ability to handle that licensing process in a
responsible way.
As you know, we are now looking at the possibility of
creating an Advanced Reactor Office, legislating that. We are
working inside the Energy Committee now to look at that
reality. The President's budget has about $4 million in it that
deals with new advanced design high temperature gas reactors.
If you visit with me and all of you commissioners certainly
could respond, I think I share your concern about doing it
right, obviously, and doing it in a timely fashion. It has a
broader scope than just licensing for application in this
Country. I have spent a good number of years looking at it, in
fact, legislated it in part into being because of its
flexibility, its safety, what it can do beyond light water.
Modularizing it, shaping it to different loads, being able to
possibly produce hydrogen, being able to produce processed heat
at reasonable cost from smaller units to chemical facilities
and all of that kind of thing in a futuristic approach.
Is it reasonable to assume that you can get your work done
with the talent that has been historically focused on light
water? Do we need to create an Advanced Reactor office within
the NRC that brings that kind of talent and focus to the new
concepts? While I am not suggesting that those who look at
current light water designs are not flexible, I am saying, I
think I am trying to gather from your comments that we need to
look at it in a different way. Make your comments in relation
to what I have just said, if you would, please.
Mr. Lyons. Senator Craig, I think speaking for myself, at
least, I think the Commission would certainly look to guidance
from Congress if it wishes to create an Advanced Reactor
office. I personally don't think that is essential. I believe
that within the existing New Reactor Office there already has
been considerable thought given to how we would move forward
with licensing of the NGNP. And as I mentioned, I believe it is
in the Chairman's written statement, that we will provide a
joint strategy with DOE as demanded by the Energy Policy Act of
2005, a joint strategy to work toward the licensing and the
research that is required. That would be accomplished whether
or not we had a separate Advanced Reactor office. I personally
don't feel strongly that is necessary.
Senator Craig. OK. Yes, Kristine.
Ms. Svinicki. Senator Craig, I would support the answer
that Commissioner Lyons gave, in that I don't know that a new
organization within the NRC would cure the challenges related
to this. I think what Commissioner Lyons was expressing in his
opening statement, and he can modify this if it is not correct,
is that just as we are discussing today an agency that wants to
posture itself and lean forward into new reactors, whether that
be NGNP or commercial applications, what does that take? It
takes a lot of preparatory activities. For a technology such as
NGNP that the agency will not have licensed before, is not
likely to have licensed before, we need to be able to have the
resources to do that.
Now, Congress did foresee NRC's role in legislating the
NGNP project. All appropriations, I would note, go to the
Secretary of Energy. So the NRC receives its resources as a
flow-through. So Congress was forward-looking on that, but we
need to maintain a cognizance that we are receiving our
resources in order to do that at the discretion of DOE.
Senator Craig. OK. Further comments on this discussion?
Mr. Klein. I think the comments that Commissioners Lyons
and Svinicki both made are really appropriate. What we need to
do is work parallel with the Department of Energy to establish
a regulatory framework, as these new technologies come forward.
We have this minor problem called budgets since we capture
about 90 percent of our budget through fees to licensees. So
for us, we believe that we should start in parallel, so as the
Department of Energy is coming up with new technologies, we
need to be working with them, not wait until they have an
answer, so that we can do the preparation of our staff,
determine the regulatory requirements in process.
But for us, it will come back to budgets, so that we can
hire and train those individuals for which we don't have the
fee recovery.
Senator Craig. A followup briefly to that, then, because my
time is up. So what we are hearing from you, instead of taking
resources from the fees collected, appropriated dollars going
to you, so that you can parallel and cooperate and work as you
wish, as you need to with DOE in that relationship? Is that
what I am hearing?
Mr. Klein. That is absolutely what I think the three of us
have stated. We do need basically the consistent funding, so we
can hire, train and get these individuals, so we can look at
these long-term projects in parallel with the Department of
Energy.
Senator Craig. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. You bet.
Senator Cardin, welcome, we are glad to see you.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would ask
unanimous consent that my opening statement could be included
in the Committee record.
Senator Carper. Without objection, so ordered.
Senator Cardin. Let me thank you very much for holding this
hearing. I think it is very important. The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's work is extremely important to our Country. I have
had an opportunity to see first-hand the work that is done. I
thank all of you for your commitment to safety and to the
community issues.
Dr. Klein, I want to concentrate on one part of your
statement that has me concerned in response to Senator Inhofe's
questions on resources. You State that early COL applications
are unlikely to achieve the full benefits of the Part 52
process. If I understand the Part 52 process, it is to have an
effective, timely and predictable process. And I want to make
sure there is nothing more you need from Congress in order to
achieve the full benefits of a process that will give the
highest level of assurance to the public of safety and move the
system as effectively and efficiently and as timely as possible
to achieve the results.
So let me just ask an open-ended question. Is there
anything more that we should be doing in order to make sure
that the full benefits of the Part 52 process can be achieved?
Mr. Klein. The short answer is yes. And it has to do with
space. We now have hired, as Senators Carper and Voinovich
know, we have hired new people to meet this new workload. One
of the challenges that we have now is that we have had to move
into four rental locations. And that has a lot of
inefficiencies in it. We have to duplicate security, we have to
duplicate computer systems, we have to have a shuttle bus, lost
time on all those activities. So I would say that there is one
aspect that you could help us on, and that is consolidation of
our space, so that we can all be back together.
The Kemmeny Commission made a comment after Three Mile
Island, that one of the complicating factors was the fact that
the NRC was located in seven different locations. We are going
right back to that, because we can't seem to get consolidated.
So space would help us.
Senator Cardin. I am very familiar with that issue. Dr.
Lyons.
Mr. Lyons. Senator Cardin, I certainly agree with the
Chairman's comment. But I would add one more. We have provided
recommended legislation to the Committee on the area of
mandatory hearings. Right now, I would say there is a highly
antiquated provision in the Atomic Energy Act that requires us
to hold a so-called mandatory hearing in the COL process even
though there is nothing contested. We have suggested that has
been overtaken by many events, everything from sunshine laws to
freedom of information to the FACA Committee and commission
requirements that have been levied.
The idea of having a mandatory hearing when there is
nothing contested is an unnecessary inefficiency.
Senator Cardin. Is there agreement on that?
Mr. Jaczko. Senator, I respect Commissioner Lyons' views on
that, but I don't agree that the mandatory hearing would play
little if any role. There is the potential that with these new
reactor proceedings, there may not be a contested issue. As a
result, if we eliminate the mandatory hearing provision, there
would be no formal hearing at all on the licensing process.
I think sometimes we place too much of a burden on the
public to generate issues. It is not the responsibility,
necessarily, of intervenors to come up with every possible
issue. And if they happen to not have tremendous resources,
they may focus on one or two issues. Those may not turn out to
be the issues of most significance in a hearing process.
So simply relying on the issues that are brought by
intervenors I think is not necessarily the measure of whether
or not a hearing should happen.
Senator Cardin. Let me just make sure I have it straight,
here. As far as the space efficiency issue, is there any
disagreement that space efficiency is an issue that is
affecting the compliance with the new procedures? Everybody
agrees with that.
On the hearing issue, I hear there is disagreement. Are
there any other matters that you want Congress to do to make it
more likely that the benefit of this process can be achieved?
Mr. Klein. It would help to have timely budgets.
Senator Cardin. That is beyond any of our--now you have
gone too far.
[Laughter.]
Senator Cardin. Let's get realistic here.
Mr. Jaczko. Senator, if I could add one other point, too.
One issue that I think might be helpful is a reexamination of
some of the deadlines that were put into the Energy Policy Act.
For several of the incentives and the benefits, there are
milestones and deadlines. In my view, some of those milestones
and deadlines have certainly, I think, achieved their goal,
which is to stimulate and generate interest in the industry to
submit applications and to submit filings. But one of the
downsides of that has been a rush of applications and a rush of
filings to meet those milestones. And revisiting some of those
milestones may in fact I think actually enhance the process,
because it will provide more breathing room for applicants to
come to us when their applications are really complete and
really ready, and allow us to work through a number of
applications in a more focused or smaller number in a more
focused way to get those done in a timely and predictable
manner, and demonstrate how the process can work.
When I first came to the Commission in 2005, there was talk
of two applications. And now we are talking about, over the
next several years, 20 some applications for 30 units. A lot of
that is driven, the timing is driven by some of those
milestones in the Energy Policy Act incentive.
So revisiting those I think could help to alleviate some of
that initial crunch.
Senator Cardin. Mr. Chairman, could I ask that you review
the two points that have been raised here about perhaps
unnecessary hearings and also the limits, times that are in the
law? And if there is a consensus recommendation that would help
streamline the process, I think we would welcome receiving that
information.
Mr. Klein. We will send you something in writing.
Senator Cardin. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Yes, if you will make that available to the
full Committee and Subcommittee, that would be terrific.
[The referenced information was not received at time of
print.]
Senator Carper. All right, Senator Isakson.
Senator Isakson. Thank you, Senator Carper.
I am sorry the picture is gone, but Dr. Jaczko, you seem to
be familiar with that incident.
Mr. Jaczko. I think we all are, Senator.
Senator Isakson. OK. Nobody has told, I don't know what
that incident was? What was I looking at? What actually
happened?
Mr. Jaczko. That was a bank of cooling towers which are
used at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station to help reduce
the temperature in the water, so that it can be discharged to a
local river, I believe, in order to meet environmental
constraints on the operation of the plant.
Senator Isakson. Was that either a safety or an
environmental threat?
Mr. Jaczko. Certainly it poses the potential for the
licensee to exceed their permitting requirements on the
environmental side.
Senator Isakson. For discharge?
Mr. Jaczko. For discharge, exactly. Now, they reduced power
as a result of that, so that they would stay within their
limits. So as a result, they actually had to go down in power
to maintain their allowable levels of discharge.
Mr. Klein. There is one cell that is safety-related, but
only one cell. The affected unit was not a safety cell. And I
think one of the difficulties we have had explaining this is
obviously that is a very graphic picture. But for us, it is not
a safety-related issue. As Commissioner Jaczko indicated, the
company had the power down so they did not exceed their
temperature limits. But it was not a safety issue for the
reactor.
Senator Isakson. For the record, I just thought the record
ought to reflect, I thought I heard you saying it in your
answer, Mr. Jaczko, this was not a safety or environmental
violation, which is why it didn't rise to the level of a fine.
Mr. Jaczko. Certainly I wouldn't say that it wasn't, well,
in the end, though, the licensee didn't violate their
environmental provisions, because they did reduce power. But
that is a required system to meet environmental protection
issues.
Senator Isakson. I understand. I think that needs to be in
the record.
Not to pick on you, Dr. Jaczko, but you made a comment
about activity. I understand Dr. Klein's statement about a CR
and the budgetary constraints that you have. But I heard you
say there may be, you used the word may, a statutory
prohibition for a new activity under a CR. And I read this
graph here that my staff has provided me with, where you have
13 pending applications and are anticipating 9 or 10 or 11
more. Those 9 or 10 or 11, then, if they came in during a CR,
are you saying that would be a new activity, therefore you
would be statutorily prohibited from beginning the process?
Mr. Jaczko. That is a question that I have had discussions
with the staff about. I don't have yet a complete answer, but I
think it is one that--I don't think, in my view, that is the
intention of what a new activity would be defined as. It may be
just a requirement that we have to adhere to.
Senator Isakson. Thank you. I would just suggest to the
Chairman, that seems like a technicality we need to correct.
Because I understand the CR problem, but I don't understand an
application actually being prohibited just because you are
under a CR.
Dr. Klein, did you say 90 percent of your budget comes in
terms of fees from the industry you regulate?
Mr. Klein. Yes. In the late 1990's, it was changed from 100
percent fee recovered to 90 percent fee recovered. So all of
our licensees pay for our services.
Senator Isakson. I think that is important for us to note
in this whole CR question, too, of course, it ultimately always
is taxpayers' money, whether the utility is paying it, they got
it from the taxpayer, or the taxpayer does.
Mr. Klein. A lot of these are ratepayer dollars, as opposed
to taxpayer dollars.
Senator Isakson. Well, ratepayers are generally, not
always, but----
[Laughter.]
Senator Isakson [continuing].--generally are taxpayers.
Dr. Lyons, you responded on Yucca Mountain, or were in part
of that discussion. I will close with this, Mr. Chairman. I
understand the controversy at Nevada. I understand the
controversy anywhere when you are talking about storing nuclear
waste.
But as I understand it, the French process of recycling
reduces spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors by 90 percent.
Is that a proper understanding?
Mr. Klein. That is a general rule of thumb. It may not
always be 90, but it is significant.
Senator Isakson. I think it is important to understand. The
members from South Carolina and Georgia have gone to Secretary
Bodman extensively over the last few years, as the Savannah
River site has ratcheted down in terms of its workload. There
is a site that has built the nuclear warheads for our arsenal
for I guess 40 or 50 years, has been environmentally totally
safe the entire time. In fact, the university system of Georgia
has an environmental laboratory that has monitored for decades.
It would seem like although you regulate and don't
advocate, it would seem like a MOX facility to reprocess spent
fuel and reduce the waste by 90 percent would be something we
ought to be investigating as a Nation. I would appreciate, Dr.
Lyons, your comment on that.
Mr. Lyons. Speaking from the NRC's perspective, our focus
has to be on the safety of whatever is proposed. Speaking as an
individual, I do believe that reprocessing is a better approach
for the Nation in terms of a spent fuel management overall
strategy.
Senator Isakson. Do any of the commissioners disagree with
that statement?
[Negative responses.]
Senator Isakson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Senator Carper. And thanks for asking that question.
One more round, and then we will excuse this panel.
The NRC does not require a public hearing, and I think
this, we actually started getting into this with one of Senator
Cardin's questions. So I am going to followup to that. The NRC
does not require a public hearing for plant renewal unless a
contention is filed and admitted by the NRC's Atomic Safety and
Licensing Board. If you feel it is important to have a
mandatory public hearing for new plant licenses, why not for
license renewals? You talked a little bit about this, but I
want to get back to it.
Mr. Klein. Speaking personally, I am not really excited
about mandatory hearings if there are no issues that have been
brought forward. By the time a hearing or an issue has come up,
we have so much dialog with the public, with the opportunity
for intervention, that if there are no new issues to be
addressed, I am not a supporter of mandatory hearings.
Senator Carper. Anybody else, briefly?
Mr. Lyons. I think I already indicated my statement against
the mandatory hearing.
Senator Carper. Anyone else? Commissioner Svinicki.
Ms. Svinicki. Yes, thank you. I didn't respond earlier. I
am supportive of the Commission's legislative proposal to
eliminate the mandatory hearing.
Senator Carper. All right. Commissioner Jaczko.
Mr. Jaczko. Just to complete the set, I actually am not
supportive of that provision, for the reasons I indicated. The
mandatory hearing, or the hearing process, plays an important
role. As I said, I think we may over-emphasize the distinction
between contested and non-contested. Contested simply means
that intervenors have come forward with specific issues. But I
certainly would not want to say today that we are dependent
upon intervenors to identify what the problems are with any
application. The hearing serves as an opportunity for the
Commission itself to formally review the application, to
formally review the decisions that the staff has made. It
provides licensing boards an opportunity to review the
decisions and determinations of the staff.
So it serves an important oversight and management function
on the part of the Commission, whether there are contested
issues or not. So I think eliminating that mandatory hearing
provision is tantamount to eliminating the hearing provision. I
don't know that I am comfortable with that at this point.
Senator Carper. So out of the four commissioners, three of
you believe that if there is not a contentious issue that is
being raised, at least for the license renewals, that a public
hearing is not appropriate. But I believe you all feel that
whether there is a contentious issue or not, on a new
application, there has to be a hearing or series of hearings,
is that correct?
Mr. Klein. We have a lot of public dialog, a lot of public
comments. We expect early on that we will have contested issues
and we will have hearings.
Mr. Lyons. And I do not support mandatory hearings for new
plants. I concur with the Chairman that there are many, many
opportunities for public input, public involvement, and, as I
stated earlier, there are a number of pieces of legislation
which I believe have provided many more opportunities for
public input and public knowledge, which in my mind no longer
require the mandatory hearing for the new plant.
Senator Carper. Very briefly, please.
Mr. Jaczko. If I could just very briefly refer to one
comment the Chairman made. With regard to the safety review
that the Commission conducts, there is no opportunity for
public hearing. We have opportunities for public hearing on the
environmental provisions. The only opportunity for public
participation on the safety review is through the hearing
process.
Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
For the renewal license hearings, public groups claim that
the NRC provides legal support for the industry. Is that true?
I'll State it again. For the renewable license hearing, some
public groups claim the NRC provides legal support for the
industry. Is that a true assertion?
Mr. Klein. I don't believe we provide legal support for the
industry. We provide legal support for ourselves. But the
industry should pay their own bills.
Senator Carper. There is a member of your staff right over
your right shoulder who is nodding her head no. Is that your
legal counsel?
Senator Carper. That is our General Counsel.
Senator Carper. All right, fair enough. Does anyone else
want to respond to that assertion?
Mr. Jaczko. That may be in reference to some of the
confusion about how our hearing process works. Because we
generally have three parties involved, usually the applicant,
the staff and then individuals who raise concerns. And often,
by the time we actually get into many of the arguments and the
discussions in the hearing process, the staff has done a lot of
their review of the application. So the staff positions are
often consistent with the positions of the applicant. So
sometimes intervenors get the impression that there is a level
of working together there that isn't necessarily always the
case. But it does pose a challenge, I think, from a perception
issue and from a communication issue.
Senator Carper. Thank you. One more on waste confidence.
Senator Voinovich had written to the Chairman of the NRC on the
waste confidence rule. But waste confidence is crucial for the
health for the health of this industry. Where is the Commission
in the waste confidence rule process, and when do you think it
will be finalized?
Mr. Klein. We received some information from our trusty
Office of General Counsel, behind me, from the staff on
recommendations and ways forward. We hope to have a decision on
that soon. It is very likely that it will be within the next 2
weeks or less. And we will likely address it through a
rulemaking process. We have a few technicalities to address.
I think the important part is to note that dry cast storage
is safe. We have a lot of confidence in that. I do believe that
as we move forward, it is very important that there is an
agreement between the Department of Energy and the utilities
for these new plants, so that it will give us as a Commission
more confidence that there is a final path forward for those
new plants.
Senator Carper. Does anyone else want to comment? No. OK.
Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. I would just like to point out a couple
of things and then ask a question. When the EPA did the
analysis of the Lieberman-Warner-Boxer bill, they claimed that
in order for them to meet the caps that they specify in the
application that there would have to be 150 new plants built by
2050. When the Energy Information Agency looked at the same
thing, they came back and said, 65 plants by 2030. We have
heard a lot today about the timing it will take in order to
move these along. But from a practical point of view, first of
all, what are the chances of getting 65 new facilities by 2030,
No. 1 and No. 2, even if these applications move through the
process, when do you predict that they would come online, which
is another issue that people are concerned about?
And the third question really is one that we have been
working on for a long time, and that is the issue of security.
As we have had these hearings, I have urged the Commission to
get more into actually safety, the safety culture, the regimen,
the standards that are being implemented at the various
reactors, and where have you gone in terms of improving upon
that aspect of this? Because prior to this, it seemed that they
let the issue of safety culture within the framework of the
people that were operating these facilities, and there wasn't
any kind of standards that you applied to determine whether or
not safety, in effect, was something that was being done at
these facilities.
Mr. Klein. I will take those in order.
I believe, whether we could have 65 plants online by 2030
is more of an infrastructure issue, rather than a regulatory
issue. As I have said before, I don't believe the NRC will be a
bottleneck in this process. We intend to be responsive with our
obligation of safety and security, but also meeting appropriate
milestones. So I think the number of plants that could be
available by any given date will probably hinge more on
manufacturing, construction and other talents, not the
regulator.
In terms of reactors coming online, it is reasonable to
believe that if applications come in on time, and we are able
to receive requests for additional information, I believe it is
reasonable to assume that new plants should be running in the
2016 to 2017 timeframe. And again, the number of those that are
in operation probably depends upon the contracts that the
utilities will be able to enable them to actually build. Again,
I don't believe they will be limited by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
And then to your final question on safety culture. Safety
culture is extremely important, as Davis-Besse pointed out. We
have two pilots underway with utilities to look at how do you
measure, how do you encourage safety culture internally. We are
also looking at a safety culture internal. In other words, we
should hold ourselves as accountable as those we regulate, so
we are looking at a safety culture within the NRC.
The challenge with the safety culture is, how do you
measure it? What are your metrics? So you often end up
measuring surrogates in terms of, do people have the ability to
raise issues without retribution? Is there an open
communication channel? Things of that nature. So a safety
culture is something that we are focused on. We have pilots.
But we haven't, as an industry, and we don't know of any
industry that really has a good metric on how do you measure
safety culture. But we are trying to find it.
Senator Carper. Thank you. And I would urge you to continue
that search. My hope is that you will find it and put it to
good use.
We appreciate very much your being here today and thank you
for your testimony. Thank you for your response to our
questions. Thank you for the leadership that you provide for
our Commission.
I want to say before you leave, what you are doing is just
enormously important to our Nation. We face this huge and
growing reliance on foreign energy. A lot of it is controlled
by people who don't like us very much. I am convinced they are
using our money to hurt us. And we have grave threats to our
environment, really to our world by virtue of global warming,
and enormous threats to our health, especially for us who live
on the east coast, because we are at the end of the tailpipe
when it comes to sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury.
And nuclear energy is certainly not the sole answer, there is
no silver bullet here. My colleagues have referred to any
number of other things that we need to do, including renewable
energy, efficiencies and conservation. There are plenty of
other things we can and need to do all at once. But what you
are doing is an enormously important part of the solution to
get us out of the mess that we are in and right back on the
right track.
So thank you very much. Continue to be ever vigilant. Thank
you.
We will call our second panel. A vote has been scheduled
for 12:15 on an amendment by one of our colleagues to the
global AIDS bill. And I will just ask my colleague, Senator
Voinovich, how you would feel about heading over to the floor
maybe just before 12:15, so we can go ahead, introduce this
panel, they can begin and when you return, I can go vote. That
way we won't waste any time.
Senator Voinovich. That is fine.
Senator Carper. OK, thanks.
Gentlemen, welcome. We are delighted that you are here on
this panel. Hubert T. Bell, Inspector General of the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. Who appoints you, if you don't mind my
asking? Who is the appointing authority for the Inspector
General at the NRC?
Mr. Bell. I am nominated by the President, confirmed by the
Senate.
Senator Carper. I see. Thanks very much.
David Christian, Mr. Christian, thank you very much. Nice
to see you. President and Chief Nuclear Officer at Dominion.
And I hope I don't mangle this name too much. Is it
Pietrangelo?
Mr. Pietrangelo. Correct, sir.
Senator Carper. Mr. Anthony R. Pietrangelo, Vice President
for Regulatory Affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Mr. Richard Webster, Legal Director of the Eastern
Environmental Law Center. Thank you for joining us today.
Dr. Joseph Romm, Senior Fellow at the Center for American
Progress.
And finally, H. John Gilbertson, Jr., the Managing Director
at Goldman Sachs and Company.
We are delighted that you are here. We welcome your
participation. We are going to try to keep this rolling, even
during the course of this vote. We all have roughly 5 minutes
to speak, then we will followup with questions. We are happy
that you are here and look forward to continuing this
conversation with you right now.
Mr. Bell, you are up first. Your entire statement will be
made part of the record. If you could summarize and keep it to
about 5 minutes, please.
STATEMENT OF HON. HUBERT T. BELL, INSPECTOR GENERAL, NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION ACCOMPANIED BY: ANTHONY LIPUMA, DEPUTY
ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AUDITS; GEORGE MULLEY, SENIOR
LEVEL ASSISTANT FOR INVESTIGATIVE OPERATIONS
Mr. Bell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
Subcommittee. It is a pleasure to appear before you today.
I am accompanied today by Mr. Anthony Lipuma, Deputy
Assistant Inspector General for Audits, and Mr. George Mulley,
Senior Level Assistant for Investigative Operations.
As you know, the mission of the Office of the Inspector
General at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is to assist the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission by assuring integrity, efficiency
and accountability in the agency's programs. My office carries
out this mission by independently and objectively conducting
and supervising audits and investigations related to NRC's
programs and operations, preventing and detecting fraud, waste
and abuse and promoting economy, efficiency and effectiveness
in NRC's programs and operations.
Over the past year, my office has issued three reports
pertaining to the NRC's licensing and relicensing processes for
operating nuclear power plants. These reports identify
shortcomings relative to the agency's review process. I would
like to talk today about two of the reports, each of which
focused on NRC's license renewal program.
The first report, Audit of NRC's License Renewal Program,
assessed the effectiveness of NRC's nuclear reactor license
renewal safety reviews. These reviews are conducted by NRC's
license renewal staff and focus on how licensees manage adverse
effects of aging to provide reasonable assurance that plants
will continue to operate in accordance with the current
licensing basis for the period of extended operations.
The OIG audit found that NRC has developed a comprehensive
license renewal process to evaluate applications for extended
periods of operation, however, OIG identified areas where
improvements would enhance program operations.
One area identified as needing improvement pertained to
license renewal reporting. Auditors found that NRC staff did
not consistently provide adequate descriptions of review
methodology or support for conclusions in license renewal
reports, because NRC has not established a report quality
assurance process to ensure adequate documentation. In 42
percent of the cases reviewed, OIG found identical or nearly
identical word for word repetition of the licensee's renewal
application text in the NRC Review Team inspection and safety
evaluation reports. The lack of precision in differentiating
quoted and unquoted text made it difficult for a reader to
distinguish between the licensee-provided information and NRC
staff independent assessment methodology and conclusion. As a
result, those who read the report could conclude that
regulatory decisions are not adequately reviewed and
documented.
As a follow on to the audit of the NRC's license renewal
program, OIG issued sent a report to the Chairman of the NRC
addressing concerns raised regarding the extent of the NRC
staff review of license renewal applications. For this report,
OIG's investigative unit conducted a review of NRC staff's
preparation of license renewal safety evaluation reports that
documented NRC assessments of license renewal applications for
four nuclear power plants (Browns Ferry, Brunswick, D.C. Cook,
and Oyster Creek). OIG determined that the license review staff
conducted headquarters and onsite reviews of license renewal
application materials. Staff used professional judgment to
determine the extent of their onsite review of licensee
documents and the number and nature of questions they posed to
licensee staff and requests for additional information.
OIG determined that between 70 and 90 percent of the NRC
review of license renewal applications was performed onsite.
The results of the onsite reviews were documented in license
renewal audit reports. Based on information developed by the
staff during its headquarters and onsite review activities, as
well as written responses to NRC questions and clarifying
discussions held with the licensee, NRC reviewers submitted
their formal input to be used as the basis for a Safety
Evaluation Report.
The OIG report to the Chairman noted that NRC onsite
license renewal audit reports are summary in nature. These
reports document the findings of the NRC onsite review and
provide support for the NRC conclusion in Safety Evaluation
Reports. The audit reports also list the licensee documents
that were reviewed during the NRC onsite reviews.
Additionally, based on our review of NRC work hour data,
OIG noted that significant numbers of hours were used by the
NRC staff in their review of the license renewal applications
for the four power plants reviewed by OIG. However, during its
review OIG learned that as a standard practice the NRC staff
does not preserve as permanent records copies of all licensee
documents reviewed onsite or their own working papers, for
example, inspector notes. These documents provide additional
direct support of the specifics of the NRC onsite review. The
lack of licensee documents and NRC working papers made it
difficult for OIG to verify specific details of the staff
onsite review activities.
In response to the OIG audit recommendations pertaining to
license renewal reporting, NRC has proposed or taken specific
actions intended to impose standards for report writing and
ensure consistent implementation of license renewal reviews.
These actions include updating report writing guidance and
developing associated training to convey report writing
standards for describing the license renewal review methodology
and providing support for conclusions and license renewal
reports and implementing an enhanced report review process.
OIG is currently assessing NRC's proposed and completed
actions to determine whether the actions meet the intent of the
recommendations. As resources permit, my staff will continue to
conduct audits related to nuclear power industry licensing
during Fiscal Year 2009 and beyond. Audits will assess such
areas as NRC's quality assurance planning for new reactors, the
agency's readiness to oversee the construction of new nuclear
power plants, NRC's vendor inspection program and other key
issues pertaining to new reactor licensing, as well as the
licensing of Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation.
Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee, this
concludes my report to you on my Office's recent activities
pertaining to NRC's licensing and relicensing processes for
nuclear power plants.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Mr. Bell, thank you very much for your
testimony.
Mr. Christian, again, welcome and please proceed.
STATEMENT OF DAVID A. CHRISTIAN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF NUCLEAR
OFFICER, DOMINION NUCLEAR
Mr. Christian. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, I am pleased
to be able to have the opportunity to participate today. As you
mentioned, I am the Chief Nuclear Officer and President of
Dominion's nuclear organization.
Dominion is one of the Nation's largest producers of
energy. We operate seven reactors on four sites in three
States, two sites in Virginia with two reactors each, one site
in Connecticut and one site in Wisconsin. We are actively
involved in the Federal process that we believe will lead to
the first new nuclear unit to be built in the United States in
30 years.
I was invited here today to give you my company's opinion
and experience with the new nuclear licensing process. Overall,
I will say that my observations are that the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has been both professional and open in developing
and implementing the new licensing process, previously referred
to as the Part 52 process. Although there is still some work to
be done, we believe that the goals are achievable. Continued
oversight will be necessary and continued attention will be
required to assure that the progress achieved through the
licensing process improvements is sustained.
My basis for saying that our experience with the NRC's new
licensing process is positive is that Dominion has hands-on
experience with two of the three elements in the new licensing
process, that being early site permitting and combined
licenses, and we are actively cooperating with General Electric
Hitachi Nuclear Energy on the third element, the design
certification for the ESBWR, or Economic Simplified Boiling
Water Reactor advanced design, a design which includes a
combination of passive reactor safety designed in unit
security, economic and reliable operation.
In 2002, we were the first company to begin working with
the U.S. DOE on demonstrating the early site permit process.
Following our submittal, an extensive NRC staff review and
public input and a mandatory hearing, the NRC issued our early
site permit in November 2007. On the same day that we received
our early site permit, we submitted and applied for a combined
operating license for a new 1,500 megawatt unit at North Anna,
some 90 miles from here. Dominion's COL application was based
on NRC guidance, developed with significant interactions
between the public and the industry. The NRC acknowledged the
quality of our application and completed its acceptance review
in less than the prescribed time. The NRC is scheduled to
complete its detailed reviews in August 2010.
Our assessment of the NRC's positioning is that they are
prepared to handle a large, but not unlimited, number of
applications from utilities and vendors. The NRC strongly
encourages and encouraged the design-centered working group
approach or design-centered review approach to maximize its
review efficiency. Dominion supports this approach through its
participation in the ESBWR design-centered working group and
its role as the lead license applicant for this design.
The NRC has taken a number of actions to prepare for new
unit applications and those were enumerated in Chairman Klein's
testimony.
In sum, the NRC can issue reasonable schedules when
provided with quality applications that meet its requirements.
What this results in is applications that are accepted in a
timely manner and review schedules that are unencumbered with
conditions.
The NRC, through its Office of New Reactors, is working to
maintain its published schedule. In addition, much has been
said here today about the efficiency of the license review
process, and the timing of the license review process. It is
important to remember that the concept of reviewing common
issues one time for a reference application and then expecting
subsequent applications to use that reference to reference the
resolved issues promises to make future application reviews far
more efficient.
One aspect of the combined license process which has yet to
be proved is to confirm that what was built is the same as what
was licensed. This final aspect is sometimes referred to as
ITAAC or Inspection Test Analyses and Acceptance Criteria.
These tests are conducted prior to fuel load and bringing the
reactor into service. We view this will be a challenge, but we
expect to resolve it in a manner that ensures public health and
safety is maintained.
In conclusion, let me reiterate that our observations are
that the NRC has been professional and open in developing and
implementing the new licensing process. It is capable of
implementing the process to license new units and the industry
is capable and prepared to submit quality applications.
Although there is some work still to be done to implement the
new process, the goal of deploying new reactors in the U.S.
appears achievable.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Christian follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Mr. Christian, thank you very much.
Mr. Pietrangelo, you are welcomed.
STATEMENT OF ANTHONY R. PIETRANGELO, VICE PRESIDENT, NUCLEAR
ENERGY INSTITUTE
Mr. Pietrangelo. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Voinovich,
I appreciate the opportunity to testify today and on behalf of
the nuclear industry, thank this Subcommittee for its
longstanding interest in and oversight of the NRC's activities
and the issues important to the continued beneficial uses of
nuclear energy.
In particular, we appreciate the leadership shown by
Senator Carper and Senator Voinovich on key issues including
infrastructure, the loan guarantee program and waste confidence
that are critical to new plant build. My testimony today
addresses the following topics: one, the performance of the 104
power reactors and the contribution nuclear energy makes toward
the U.S. energy and environmental policies; two, the importance
of license renewal to extending the value of nuclear power
plant assets and NRC's license renewal process; and three, the
prospects for building new nuclear plants in the U.S. and the
importance of an effective and efficient NRC licensing process.
The U.S. nuclear fleet continues to operate at record high
levels of safety and reliability. In 2007, the highlights
include the industry's capacity factor at 91.8 percent, an all-
time high. U.S. reactors produced 806 billion kilowatt hours at
an average production cost of 1.76 cents per kilowatt hour,
both new industry standards. With this excellent performance,
nuclear energy continues to generate about 20 percent of U.S.
electricity, despite the fact that nuclear power plants
represent only about 12 percent of the installed electric
generating capacity.
In addition, nuclear energy accounts for more than 70
percent of the Nation's carbon-free electricity generation and
prevented the emissions of CO2 equivalent to those from all
passenger vehicles in the United States in 2007. The
outstanding performance of the U.S. nuclear fleet, along with
its contributions to our energy and environmental goals,
provide the context and foundation for renewing the licenses of
existing plants and preparations for new plant build.
License renewal of nuclear power plants in this Country is
founded upon technical research begun in 1982 through the
nuclear plant aging research program established by the NRC.
The program concluded that aging phenomena are manageable and
should not preclude extended operation for reactors. The
rulemaking that followed, 10 C.F.R. Part 54, included two
fundamental principles: the regulatory process will ensure that
the licensing basis provides and maintains plant safety and
that the licensing basis carries forward throughout the renewed
period of operation.
The license renewal process does not attempt to duplicate
the regulatory oversight that occurs continually at all
reactors. Rather, it appropriately focuses on managing the
effects of aging on key structures and components that are not
routinely inspected. Applicants for renewal are required to
identify the important structures and components within the
scope of the rule. Second, they must identify the aging
mechanisms or effects that these structures and components are
subject to. And finally, they must describe how they will
address and manage the aging effects through plant programs and
inspections.
The NRC developed the Generic Aging Lessons Learned, or
GALL report, to capture experience on aging effects. The report
also captures practices acceptable to the NRC for managing
those aging effects. Applicants routinely reference the
practices detailed in the GALL report in their applications.
This in large part explains some of the findings in the NRC
Inspector General's audit of the license renewal process.
Turning to new plant build, I cannot overState the
importance of available loan guarantee program to kick start
the first wave of plants, and that would lower the cost of
electricity to consumers. NEI expects four to eight plants will
be deployed by the middle of the next decade. The industry is
well aware of the areas that plague the construction of the
existing fleet, and we have focused our efforts on mitigating
those risks. This must be demonstrated by completing these
first projects within schedule and budget constraints to build
confidence for a more significant expansion to occur.
From a licensing perspective, the NRC and the industry are
on a steep learning curve with regard to the implementation of
Part 52. Thus far, the reviews are progressing per established
schedules. Of utmost importance is the completion of key
rulemaking activities, including Part 73 on security, aircraft
impact assessments and the revision of the waste confidence
rule that will further strengthen the current regulatory basis
for NRC's waste confidence determination.
In addition, we expect that efficiencies in the licensing
process will be gained as the design certifications are
completed and lessons learned are incorporated from the initial
early site permit and combined license reviews.
Going forward, the industry's highest priority will remain
the continued safe and reliable operation of the existing
fleet. It is this performance that enabled successful license
renewal thus far, and that will sustain the recognition of
nuclear energy as an indispensable element of meeting our
Nation's energy and environmental goals.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pietrangelo follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Response by Anthony R. Pietrangelo to an Additional Question
from Senator Boxer
Question 1. Mr. Webster's written testimony mentioned that
improving the NRC's licensing procedures would actually be good
for the nuclear industry because it would help improve public
confidence and reduce resistance to the siting of new plants.
Do you agree with his statement? Aren't you concerned that
eliminating the mandatory hearing requirement for new licenses
would reduce public confidence in the NRC and the safety of new
facilities?
Response. In response to the first question, NEI agrees
with the general proposition that improving the NRC's licensing
procedures should enhance public confidence in the NRC
licensing process and thereby reduce public resistance to
siting new plants. In our view, eliminating the mandatory
hearing from NRC licensing reviews would affirmatively improve
the NRC licensing process with no attendant decrease in
protection of public health and safety and no change in
opportunities for public participation. Discontinuing the
unnecessary and duplicative reviews conducted in mandatory
uncontested hearings would reduce the burden on the NRC Staff,
the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Boards (ASLB) and
applicants, and shorten the overall licensing process for new
plants.
In response to the second question, NEI believes that
eliminating mandatory hearings should have no effect on public
confidence in the NRC, NRC licensing decisions, or the safety
of new nuclear power plants. The mandatory hearing is a
vestigial artifact of a different era and a different
regulatory framework for commercial reactor licensing. The
original purposes of the mandatory hearing--to provide public
notice of the project and an additional, independent review by
the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board are now achieved
through other, more effective NRC processes and other avenues
for public participation and independent review. The NRC
licensing process is thorough, fair, and transparent, and
protects public health and safety against radiological hazard.
This process clearly merits public confidence in NRC licensing
decisions absent a mandatory hearing. Additionally, eliminating
mandatory hearings would have no effect on public participation
in the NRC licensing and hearing process.
History of the Mandatory Hearing Provision: Following
passage of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (AEA), the Atomic
Energy Commission (AEC), the predecessor of the NRC, issued
three reactor construction permits without any public hearing
or notice of intent. To address this lack of notice, Congress
amended the AEA in 1957 to require a hearing for each new
reactor application. This change was intended to ensure that
the public was aware of applications for a new power reactor--
that is, the mandatory hearing served a ``public notice''
function. In 1962, Congress again amended the AEA to create the
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, to alleviate concerns with
the AEC's dual role as both a regulator and a promoter of
nuclear energy. Since 1962, the mandatory hearing provisions in
the AEA have not changed. However, there have been substantial
changes in the NRC licensing process, the agency's
organizational structure, and the AEA that render the mandatory
hearing redundant and unnecessary.
The ``Public Notice'' Function: NRC uses a variety of
mechanisms to offer the public detailed information regarding
new nuclear plant (or combined license (COL) applications.
Before an application is submitted, letters of intent
describing the location and timing of an expected COL
application are available on the NRC's website, http://
www.nrc.gov. The NRC also holds public meetings near the
proposed new reactor site to explain the licensing process and
identify ways in which the public may participate in the
process. Once the NRC receives an application for a COL or
Early Site Permit (ESP), it publishes in the Federal Register a
separate Notice of Receipt and Availability of an Application,
a Notice of Docketing of an Application, and a Notice of an
Opportunity to Request a Hearing. The application and related
documents are available on a webpage dedicated to each proposed
facility. During its review, the NRC holds additional public
meetings in the vicinity of the proposed facility to solicit
public input on the application.
NEPA Considerations: The National Environmental Policy Act
of 1969 (NEPA), which post-dates the AEA's mandatory hearing
provision, requires NRC to conduct environmental reviews for
each application and to provide notice and specific
opportunities for the public to participate in those reviews.
Even absent a mandatory hearing, the ``public notice'' function
of the mandatory hearing would continue to be performed by
other, more comprehensive and effective means of public
communication.
Mandatory Hearings and the Functions of the AEC/NRC: Since
the mandatory hearing reqUirement was instituted in 1957, the
regulatory function of the AEC has been separated from the
promotional function. This resulted in the creation of the NRC,
whose function is to regulate and license commercial nuclear
materials and facilities and conduct related research. The
creation of the NRC as an independent regulatory agency in 1975
eliminated the structural conflict of interest that prompted
the establishment of the ASLB in 1962, rendering redundant the
ASLB's original role as an independent reviewer of uncontested
issues.
Mandatory Hearings and the Role of the ACRS: The Advisory
Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) is now reqUired by
statute to conduct an extensive and independent review of the
Staff's licensing review for every new reactor application.
Because the ACRS includes subject matter experts from a range
of technical disciplines, the ACRS is perhaps even better-
equipped to probe the NRC Staff's review than the ASLB. Also,
ACRS meetings are open to the public and any report issued by
the ACRS on an application is also publicly available. Thus,
the ``independent review'' objective of the mandatory hearing
is served by ACRS review, which is equally independent and
arguably more insightful.
Mandatory Hearings and Public Participation: Eliminating
the mandatory hearing would not eliminate the opportunity for
the public to participate in hearings on license applications
for new nuclear plants. Currently, members of the public have
no right to participate in the NRC's mandatory hearing.
Eliminating mandatory hearings would therefore have no effect
on the public's right to participate in the NRC licensing
process. Importantly, members of the public with standing would
still be able to offer proposed contentions on the application.
If proffered contentions were admitted, NRC Licensing Boards
would still conduct a hearing on those contentions and make de
novo factual findings on the contested issues raised by
intervenors.
This table compares the NRC reactor licensing processes and
procedures at the time the mandatory uncontested hearing
requirement was first introduced to the current regulatory
program.
Response by Anthony R. Pietrangelo to an Additional Question
from Senator Carper
Question. Collapsing cooling towers and leaks at Vermont
Yankee do not build public confidence in the nuclear industry.
However, these are considered non-safety issues and are not
under the jurisdiction of the NRC. Does the industry have best
practices available--similar to NRC's Guidelines for Aging
Response. The industry does collect and disseminate
operating experience on non-safety-related structures, system
and components through the Institute of Nuclear Power
Operations (INPO). This includes operating experience on
cooling towers as well as many other categories of non-safety-
related equipment used to produce electricity. INPO also
generates ``good practice'' documents that provide guidance on
key aspects of operations and maintenance for both safety and
non-safety systems that are important to plant reliability.
A Topical Report on Cooling Tower Structure Events was
published in March 2008 by INPO that captures key observations
from operating experience between 2000 and 2007. This report is
similar to the NRC's Generic Aging Lessons Learned report. It
details the causes and contributors to cooling tower events and
provides considerations for improving plant practices in order
to preclude such events.
The industry recognized long ago that unreliable non-safety
systems can undermine reliable electricity generation and
public confidence simultaneously. Many industry programs were
developed in the 1980's to improve the operation of the balance
of plant (the non-nuclear part of the plant) because of its
adverse impact on plant capacity factors. Since that time, the
industry has demonstrated steady improvement in fleet average
performance to the record level of generation in 2007. However,
we must continue to learn lessons from our operating experience
to avoid events that both impact reliable generation and
degrade public confidence in the overall operation of our
plants.
Responses by Anthony R. Pietrangelo to Additional Questions
from Senator Inhofe
Question 1. Of the Requests for Additional Information
(RAI's) that the industry has received, what percentage of the
applicants' responses have been returned to the NRC within the
response deadline?
Response. Overall, applicants have responded to more than
5000 Requests for Additional Information (RAIs) by the deadline
about 80 percent of the time. That percentage rises to nearly
90 percent for the early site permit and combined license
applicants. For design certification applicants, who have
received far more RAIs, the percentage is apprOXimately 76
percent.
Note: The on-time performance for design certification
applicants includes ESBWR design certification RAI responses
since March 2007, when GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and NRC
established explicit agreements on response times for
individual RAIs. Since submittal of the ESBWR design
certification in August 2005, GEH's overall on-time response
rate has been approximately 32 percent; however, since March
2007, their on-time response rate has been roughly equivalent
to the industry average.
Question 2. In the hearing, Chairman Klein testified that a
Continuing Resolution, if in effect until February, would
impact license renewals, power uprates, and new reactor
reviews. Does the industry have a clear understanding of the
criteria that will be used to prioritize reviews if the NRC
must cope with a funding shortfall?
Response. The industry understands that NRC's first
priority is the safety oversight of the existing fleet of
operating plants, whether there is a Continuing Resolution or
not. We also understand that if a Continuing Resolution is in
effect until February, and assuming the NRC is funded at its
Fiscal Year 2008 levels, that reviews already underway would
not be impacted. The impact would be on newly submitted
applications beginning in Fiscal Year 2009.
Question 3. For applications to construct new reactors at
sites with existing units, should the NRC require consideration
of alternate sites under NEPA, without an indication of new and
significant information that calls into question the NRC's
prior determination that the site was acceptable?
Response. The requirement for an evaluation of alternative
sites is based on Section 102(2)(C)(iii) of the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Consistent with NEPA's mandate
that reasonable alternatives to an action be evaluated, the
site selection process focuses on those alternative sites
considered to be reasonable considering the purpose of the
application. The alternative site review is designed to
determine whether there is an ``obviously superior'' site, in
terms of environmental impacts and economic costs, compared to
the proposed site.\1\ It is well-established that NEPA's
requirement to examine alternatives is subject to a ``rule of
reason.'' \2\ Agencies need only discuss those alternatives
that are reasonable and that ``will bring about the ends'' of
the proposed action. Hydro Resources, Inc. (P.O. Box 15910, Rio
Rancho, NM 87174), CLI01-4, 53 NRC 31, 55 (2001).
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\1\This standard was first established by the NRC for evaluating
alternative sites for new nuclear power plants in Public Serv. Co. of
New Hampshire (Seabrook Station, Units 1 and 2), CLI0977098, 5 NRC 503,
5260930 (1977). ``Obviously superior'' was later interpreted to mean
``substantially better.'' Rochester Gas and Elec. Corp. (Stirling Power
Project, Nuclear Unit No. 1), CLI09800923, 11 NRC 731, 737 (1980).
\2\NRDC v. Morton, 458 F. 2d 827 (D.C. eire 1972); Citizens Against
Burlington v. Busey, 938 F.2d 190, 195 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 502
U.S. 994 (1991).
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NRC regulations require Early Site Permit (ESP),
construction permit (CP) and combined license (COL) applicants
to address certain topics, including alternate sites, in their
Environmental Reports (ERs). See 10 CFR 51.50(a) and (c);
52.17(a)(2). The requirement that COL applicants conduct an
alternative site analysis is less explicit than that for ESP
applicants; \3\ nevertheless, this obligation clearly applies
to all ESP and COL applicants, including those who propose to
construct a new reactor at a site with existing units (a so-
called ``brown field'' site).\4\
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\3\ESP applicants must include in their ERs ``an evaluation of
alternative sites to determine whether there is any obviously superior
alternative to the site proposed.'' In this regard, the ER must discuss
``all environmental effects of construction and operation necessary to
determine whether there is any obViously superior alternative to the
site proposed.'' 10 CFR Sec. 51.50(b)(1)-(2). For COL applicants that
do not reference an ESP, NRC regulations do not contain a specific
requirement for an evaluation of alternative sites. However, among the
information to be included in the COL Environmental Report is a
discussion of ``alternatives to the proposed action/' which must be
``sufficiently complete to aid the Commission in developing and
exploring, pursuant to section 102(2)(E) of NEPA, 'appropriate
alternatives to recommended courses of action in any proposal which
involves unresolved conflicts concerning alternative uses of available
resources.' '' See 10 CFR 51.45(b)(3).
\4\See NRC Regulatory Guide 4.2, Rev. 2, ``Preparation of
Environmental Reports for Nuclear Power Stations,'' Chapter 9 (July
1976); NUREG-1555, ``NRC Environmental Standard Review Plan,'' Rev. 1,
Section 9.3 (July 2007).
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The NRC Environmental Standard Review Plan (ESRP), which
contains non-binding NRC Staff gUidance for reviewing
applicants' Environmental Reports, currently recognizes as a
``special case'' reviewing an alternative site analysis
conducted for a new plant to be co-located at an existing
reactor site. This guidance illuminates agency expectations
that the scope of the alternative site review in this situation
need not reflect the same level of evaluation:
Recognize that there will be special cases in which the
proposed site was not selected on the basis of a systematic
site-selection process. Examples include plants proposed to be
constructed on the site of an existing nuclear power plant
preViously found acceptable on the basis of a NEPA review and/
or demonstrated to be enVironmentally satisfactory on the basis
of operating experience, and sites assigned or allocated to an
applicant by a State government from a list of State approved
power-plant sites. For such cases, the reviewer should analyze
the applicant's site-selection process only as it applies to
candidate sites other than the proposed site, and the site-
comparison process may be restricted to a site-by-site
comparison of these candidates with the proposed site. The site
selection process is the same for this case except for the fact
that the proposed site is not selected from among the candidate
sites based on a site by site comparison. ESRP, NUREG-1555,
Rev. 1, p. 9.3-12 (July 2007).
Generally consistent with other NRC regulatory guidance in
Regulatory Guide 4.2 (which is directed at applicants preparing
Environmental Reports), this discussion expands the gUidance
for ``Candidate Areas'' and ``Potential Sites'' to focus on a
more elaborate, top down site selection process--beginning with
Regions of Interest (ROI), then extending to screening
candidate areas, identifying potential sites, and screening
candidate sites, and then selecting the proposed site and
alternative sites. While this is an appropriate process for
establishing a newly licensed ``green field'' site, it may not
offer the most logical or expeditious approach for a site that
is co-locating at an existing nuclear site. (Many existing
nuclear sites were already developed to have multiple units
where the environmental factors were addressed during initial
site selection review and approval.)
This ``special case'' affords the NRC Staff reviewer
flexibility in assessing the adequacy of alternative site
reviews on a case-by-case basis. Arguably, however, the
guidance could go further in recognizing that considerable
environmental and operational information about the impacts of
a nuclear plant exists with respect to each commercial reactor
site, and that such information could preclude the need for a
typical broad site alternative site review process. In
particular, where an applicant seeks to add a nuclear unit at
an existing nuclear site, a more limited assessment may be
sufficient to demonstrate that green field or non-nuclear brown
field sites are not obviously superior. An existing nuclear
site would have been selected originally based on a
comprehensive evaluation and determination that no obViously
superior alternative in the region exists. Also, an existing
nuclear site may have been originally intended and evaluated
for additional nuclear units that were not built. The
characteristics and the impacts of operation at existing
nuclear sites are well known. If this information demonstrates
no major environmental impediments to adding units at the
existing nuclear site (no factors that would make the
development of a new site enVironmentally preferable), green
field and non-nuclear brown field sites should arguably be
exempted, at least in part, from detailed site-specific
consideration.
Under such circumstances, NEPA's rule of reason should not
require COL applicants to scour a region to identify and
evaluate new potential sites, or for NRC, in turn, to perform
independent evaluation of those sites. As the ESRP states, the
purpose of this evaluation process is not to determine that the
applicant has selected the best site, but ``to determine if any
candidate site can be judged as environmentally preferable and,
if so, obViously superior to the applicant's proposed site.''
Another, less laborious process for determining that an
obviously superior site does not exist may be to allow
consideration of fewer alternatives, and/or reduce the scope of
evaluation factors.\5\
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\5\The evaluation factors presented in NUREG-1555, Ch. 9.3.,
Appendix A, provide an expansive list of assessment requirements that
is representative of a new site selection process. A subset of these
factors would arguably be more appropriate when evaluating an existing
site.
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COL applicants may consider economic factors in choosing to
co-locate new plants at existing sites. Additionally, unless
there are significant environmental concerns with an existing
site, the incremental increase in environmental impact
necessarily would be much less than the impacts for a new site.
A substantial expenditure of time and resources to evaluate
multiple alternative options would not provide useful
conclusions and would not be necessary to satisfy NEPA.
The ``special case'' discussion in the NRC Environmental
Standard Review Plan quoted above indicates that NRC is
forgoing the initial evaluation process and instead would apply
the ``candidate site'' selection phase. However, the
application of the ``candidate site'' portion of the selection
process is also not proper for existing nuclear sites. The
candidate site selection process, as described in the ESRP, is
one sequential step of the more extensive process. As discussed
in the ESRP, the result of that process would be three to five
alternative sites in addition to the preferred site. That
selection process arguably should not be required for an
applicant that proposes to use a viable existing nuclear plant
site. Instead, NRC should consider revising the ESRP to set
forth guidance for those cases where an existing nuclear site
appears to be the most appropriate option. Under such an
approach, applicants would perform as-needed comparisons
against the existing site. That approach should satisfy the
NEPA requirement to determine whether any other candidate site
is enVironmentally preferable to--and, if so, ``obviously
superior'' to--the applicant's proposed site.
Question 4. How should the Commission address contentions
that challenge the cost of building a new plant based on the
basis of historical cost overruns?
Response. The NRC should disposition proposed contentions
challenging the estimated cost of building a new nuclear plant
using the same criteria the agency applies to other types of
proposed contentions in NRC licensing proceedings. Because NRC
Atomic Safety and Licensing Boards evaluate each proposed
contention on its own merits, generalizations as to the
admissibility of ``cost-related'' contentions in NRC licensing
proceedings for new plants are not determinative. However, the
limited regulatory jurisdiction of the NRC presumably limits
(and may preclude) the adjudication of many cost-based
challenges in NRC licensing hearings.
Notably, NRC's jurisdictional limits do not foreclose
opportunities to address cost-related concerns relating to new
nuclear power plants. Economic regulatory agencies and
processes outside of the NRC hearing process are in place at
both the State and Federal levels to evaluate new generation
needs, to ensure that new plant costs are prudently incurred,
and to consider whether power sales at both the retail and
wholesale levels are just and reasonable. Responsibilities for
energy supply and planning, and for the economic regulation of
new energy projects, lie with the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission (FERC) and State public service commissions.
The Scope of NRC Regulatory Jurisdiction: Under the Atomic
Energy Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, the NRC
is tasked with specific regulatory responsibilities related to
public health and safety, common defense and security, and
protection of the environment. Responsibilities for energy
supply and planning, and for the economic regulation of new
energy projects, lies with other State and Federal Government
agencies, such as FERC and State public service commissions.
Recognizing the differing roles of various Federal and State
regulators, the NRC has consistently found, for example, that
the economic interests of a ratepayer or taxpayer do not confer
standing to raise economic issues in the NRC hearing
process.\6\
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\6\Tennessee Valley Authority (Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and
2), ALAB-413, 5 NRC 1418, 1421 (1977).
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COL Applicants Must Provide Plant Cost Information: The
scope of NRC licensing hearings (and, consequently, the scope
of contentions that may be admitted in a licensing hearing) is
limited by the nature of the application and relevant
Commission regulations. Similarly, the findings that NRC must
make concerning project costs prior to issuance of a combined
operating license (COL) are limited. Nevertheless, COL
applicants must submit certain cost information to NRC,
including an estimate of total construction costs for the
facility and the source(s) of funds to cover these costs. See
10 CFR 50.33(f)(1)-(3); see also 10 CFR 52.77. Further, NRC
regulations in 10 CFR 50.33(f)(1)-(3) governing COL
applications now require applicants to submit: (i) information
demonstrating that the applicant possesses or has reasonable
assurance of obtaining the funds necessary to cover estimated
construction costs and related fuel cycle costs; (ii) estimates
of the total facility construction costs and related fuel cycle
costs; (iii) the source(s) of funds to cover these costs.
Section 50.33(f)(1). Additionally, the COL applicant must
submit: (iv) information demonstrating that the applicant
possesses or has reasonable assurance of obtaining the funds
necessary to cover estimated operation costs for the period of
the license; (v) estimates for total annual operating costs for
each of the first 5 years of operation; (Vi) the source(s) of
funds to cover these costs. Section 50.33(f)(2). Other
information that NRC may require to enable it to determine an
applicant's financial qualifications is addressed in 10 CFR
50.33(f)(4).
Historical cost overruns for nuclear units constructed in
the 1970's and 1980's were based on many complex historical
factors that are not necessarily attributable to today's NRC
licensees or the current economic environment. To be admissible
under NRC rules, proposed contentions that challenge estimated
project costs or an applicant's proposed funding plan must be
focused on the applicant's analysis and plan as presented in
the licensing documents. The proposed contention must
articulate a specific challenge--with the necessary basis--to
that current cost analysis. It should not be sufficient (and,
in our view, it is not sufficient under NRC requirements)
simply to allege that historical overruns existed and therefore
create an admissible issue. Any specific proposed contentions
related to the cost of building a new facility will be
evaluated carefully by the Commission for admissibility in an
NRC licensing hearing.\7\ Other Forums for Considering Plant
Cost: Additionally, proposed contentions primarily related to
electric rates or prudency concerns should not be admitted in
NRC proceedings because they are more appropriately addressed
in other forums. Issues related to new project planning and
siting, including the costs of a proposed project and
alternatives, normally will be considered in a State public
service commission process. Issues related to costs actually
incurred, and whether those costs can be recovered in rates,
are then considered after the fact, based on actual experience,
rather than the now-dated experience of the 1970's and 1980's.
With respect to the cost overruns experienced for some earlier
generation nuclear plants, there were substantial disallowances
as a result of these prudency proceedings, demonstrating that
the economic regulatory process functions effectively,
independent of the NRC process.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\NRC rules require petitioners who request a hearing and/or seek
to intervene and participate in an NRC licensing hearing to ``set forth
with particularity the contentions sought to be raised.'' The
provisions for basis and specificity in proposed contentions require
that the petitioner:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Provide a specific statement of the issue of law or fact
to be raised or controverted.
Explain the basis for the proposed contention.
Demonstrate that the issue raised is within the scope of
the proceeding.
Demonstrate that the issue raised is ``material'' to the
findings the NRC must make to support the licensing action.
Provide a concise statement of the alleged facts or
expert opinions that support the petitioner's position on the
issue, and on which the petitioner intends to rely at the
hearing, together with references to the specific sources and
documents the petitioner intends to use to support his/her
position.
Provide sufficient information to show that a genuine
dispute exists with the applicant/licensee on a material issue
of law or fact. This information must include references to
specific portions of the application that the petitioner
disputes and the reasons supporting each dispute.
Alternatively, the petitioner must identify and explain the
relevance of information allegedly absent from the application.
See 10 CFR 2.309(f)(1)(i)-(vi).
For new nuclear plants, the ``justness and reasonableness''
of a generating company's wholesale power sales are subject to
review and approval by the FERC under Section 205 of the
Federal Power Act. At FERC, generating companies can request
authority under Section 205 to sell power wholesale at
negotiated, market-based rates, or at cost-based rates. With
respect to market-based sales, FERC employs rigorous market
share analyses to determine whether the generator has the
ability to impose price increases on power purchasers such that
they are required to pay more than they otherwise would in the
market. FERC does not directly determine the sales price;
rather, the generator must be able to negotiate rates that are
sufficient to cover its carrying costs, costs of production,
and a reasonable return. When generating companies seek to
establish cost-based rates, FERC reviews the elements of the
company's cost of service (including the project capital costs)
to determine whether those costs support a rate that is just
and reasonable overall. In setting the authorized rate, FERC
has authority to consider the prudence of the generator's
expenditures and whether the overall investment is ``used and
useful'' for public utility service.
Similar authority exists at the State level to review and
approve the justness and reasonableness of the price of power
sold at retail. States with retail electric choice permit
consumers to select the most economical supplies from
competitive electric suppliers, or to purchase electricity from
the incumbent utility at pre-determined ``provider of last
resort'' rates established by the public service commission. In
states without retail choice, State public service commissions
review the rates charged for retail electric supply service,
including the prudency of the costs incurred, to prOVide the
service. When an electric utility purchases power at wholesale
from a generating company, the states are typically obligated
to accept the rate established by FERC as just and reasonable
and allow a full pass-through of the costs. (An exception to
this rule allows states to disallow the cost of purchased power
if the purchasing utility did not take advantage of an
opportunity to purchase more economic supplies.)
Question 5. How should the Commission address contentions
that challenge the safety of new units based on historical
events such as Three Mile Island or Chernobyl?
Response. As stated in response to Question 3, above, the
NRC should evaluate proposed contentions challenging the safety
of new nuclear plants on the basis of ``historical events''
such as the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl under
the same standard the agency applies to all other proposed
contentions in NRC licensing proceedings. Because NRC Atomic
Safety and Licensing Boards evaluate each proposed contention
on its own merits, the admissibility of a hypothetical
contention in an NRC licensing proceeding cannot be addressed
adequately in the abstract. Long-established NRC requirements
for admission of contentions are likely to preclude the
adjudication of broadly based safety challenges that lack an
adequate basis and adequate specificity.
NRC rules of practice require petitioners who request a
hearing and/or seek to intervene and participate in an NRC
licensing hearing to ``set forth with particularity the
contentions sought to be raised.'' The provisions for basis and
specificity in proposed contentions require that the
petitioner:
Provide a specific statement of the issue of law or fact
to be raised or controverted.
explain the basis for the proposed contention.
Demonstrate that the issue raised is within the scope of
the proceeding.
Demonstrate that the issue raised is ``material'' to the
findings the NRC must make to support the licensing action.
Provide a concise statement of the alleged facts or
expert opinions that support the petitioner's position on the
issue, and on which the petitioner intends to rely at the
hearing, together with references to the specific sources and
documents the petitioner intends to use to support his/her
position.
Provide sufficient information to show that a genuine
dispute exists with the applicant/licensee on a material issue
of law or fact. This information must include references to
specific portions of the application that the petitioner
disputes and the reasons supporting each dispute.
Alternatively, the petitioner must identify and explain the
relevance of information allegedly absent from the application.
See 10 CFR 2.309(f)(1)(i)-(vi).
Given this standard for admissibility of contentions in NRC
licensing hearings for COL applications, a proposed contention
that challenges the safety of a new reactor based solely on
historical events such as the events at Three Mile Island or
Chernobyl, without more, likely would be rejected.
Moreover, generalized contentions like those described in
this question appear to ignore the fact that NRC constantly
takes into account the results of research and operational
experience in developing and modifying its ongoing regulatory
oversight process. That process applies to all existing nuclear
plants licensed by the NRC, and it also will apply to those new
reactors that may be constructed and operated under the
combined license (COL) process. The Commission has described
this oversight process as follows: ``Since initial licensing,
each operating plant has continually been inspected and
reviewed as a result of new information gained from operating
experience. Ongoing regulatory processes provide reasonable
assurance that, as new issues and concerns arise, measures
needed to ensure that operation is not inimical to the public
health and safety and common defense and security are
'backfitted' onto the plants.''\8\
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\8\``Final Rule, Nuclear Power Plant Ucense Renewal,'' 56 Fed. Reg.
64,943, 64,945 (Dec. 13, 1991) (promulgating the NRC's initial license
renewal regulations). Regarding the adequacy of its regulatory
oversight process, the Commission further stated: ``The Commission
cannot conclude that its regulation of operating reactors is 'perfect'
and cannot be improved, that all safety issues applicable to all plants
have been resolved, or that all plants have been and at all times in
the future will operate in perfect compliance with all NRC
requirements. However, based upon its review of the regulatory programs
in this rulemaking, the Commission does conclude that (a) its program
of oversight is sufficiently broad and rigorous to establish that the
added discipline of a formal license renewal review against the full
range of current safety requirements would not add significantly to
safety, and (b) such a review is not needed to ensure that continued
operation during the period of extended operation is not inimical to
the public health and safety.'' Id
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 establishes a ``comprehensive
regulatory framework for the ongoing review of nuclear power
plants located in the United States.'' County of Rockland II.
NRC, 709 F.2d 766, 769 (2d Cir. 1983). Under the AEA, the NRC
is charged with the responsibility to ``ensure, through its
licensing and regulatory functions, that the generation and
transmission of nuclear power does not unreasonably threaten
the public welfare.'' Id. Consistent with its mandate, the NRC
promulgates rules and regulations governing the construction
and operation of nuclear power plants. Id.
Moreover, when a reactor is licensed, the NRC makes a
comprehensive determination that the design, construction, and
proposed operation of the facility satisfies agency
requirements and provides reasonable assurance of adequate
protection to the public health and safety and common defense
and security. See 56 Fed. Reg. 64,943, 64,947. Each nuclear
plant has a ``current licensing basis'' (CLB), a term of art
that encompasses the gamut of NRC requirements applicable to a
specific facility over its entire license term. The current
licensing basis includes, for example, all license conditions,
orders, exemptions, and licensee commitments that are part of
the docket of that facility's license (including responses to
NRC bulletins, generic letters, enforcement actions and other
commitments documented in NR safety evaluations or licensee
event reports)--pius all of the NRC regulatory requirements
with which the licensee must comply. Significantly, the CLB
does not remain fixed or static. Rather, as is true for the
regulatory process generally, the CLB evolves over the term of
the license, as new requirements are imposed on the plant's
existing licensing basis to address ongoing NRC regulatory
requirements.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\See 56 Fed. Reg. 64,943, 64,947.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A proposed contention based solely on historical events
would necessarily assume NRC has not imposed new technical
requirements over time to further enhance nuclear power plant
safety. Such an assumption is completely incorrect, as
emphasized by the follOWing 2006 discussion by the Commission
itself:
The NRC notes that the regulatory process considers new
scientific and technical knowledge since plants were initially
licensed and imposes new requirements on licensees as
justified. The NRC engages in a large number of regulatory
activities that, when considered together, constitute a
regulatory process that provides ongoing assurance that the
licensing basis of nuclear power plants provides an acceptable
level of safety. This process includes research, inspections,
audits, investigations, evaluations of operating experience,
and regulatory actions to resolve identified issues. These
activities include consideration of new scientific or technical
information. The NRC's activities may result in changes to the
licensing basis for nuclear power plants through issuance of
new or revised regulations, and the issuance of orders or
confirmatory action letters. Operating experience, research, or
the results of new analyses are also issued by the NRC through
documents such as bulletins, generic letters, regulatory
information summaries, and information notices. In this way,
the NRC's consideration of new information provides ongoing
assurance that the licensing basis for the design and operation
of all nuclear power plants provide an acceptable level of
safety.\10\
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\10\See 71 Fed. Reg. 74,848, 74,854 (Dec. 13, 2006) (NRC Denial of
Petitions for Rulemaking from Andrew J. Spano and Joseph C. Scarpelli);
see also 56 Fed. Reg. 64,943, 64,947.
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Senator Carper. Mr. Pietrangelo, thank you for that
testimony.
Mr. Webster, before we recognize you and Dr. Romm and Mr.
Gilbertson, the vote that has occurred, we are about halfway
through that vote. Senator Voinovich went over earlier, but the
vote had not started. So we will recess the Subcommittee for
probably 10 minutes, but we will be right back. I just ask that
you make yourselves comfortable, take a break. No smoking.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. We will be back shortly. Thanks for your
patience.
[Recess.]
Senator Carper. We will resume now. Thank you, Mr. Webster,
for being in the on-deck box for the last 10 minutes. We are
glad you are here, and are looking forward to your testimony.
Thanks for coming.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD WEBSTER, LEGAL DIRECTOR, EASTERN
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER
Mr. Webster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Voinovich. It
is a great pleasure to be here. I am Richard Webster, from the
Eastern Environmental Law Center.
Before I go on, I would just like to say, if you have any
trouble with my very thick New Jersey accent, feel free to stop
me and I can clarify for you.
[Laughter.]
Mr Webster. Basically, 40-year old reactors, they are
really like old cars that have been improved and given a new
paint job for the purpose of resale. They look great, but you
have to really tap the panels to make sure there is no rust
underneath. In the case of Oyster Creek, we, the intervenors,
have tapped those panels, and we found some of them are almost
rusted through. As we probed further, with the help of the
Inspector General and a number of States attorneys general, we
realized that NRC staff was not effectively tapping those
panels. They are really admiring the paint job and saying
everything looks good.
We believe there are two broad classes of problems. One is
with the regulations themselves, regarding relicensing, the
hearing process and safety. The other concerns agency safety
culture, which leads to a lack of thoroughness on behalf of the
NRC staff. We believe the lessons of Davis-Besse were either
never learned or quickly forgotten.
In terms of the regulatory problems, the relicensing rules
don't require a comprehensive look at whether safety standards
could be improved. What happens over time is that the old
plants licensing basis basically stays about the same, the
margins decline slightly. The new plants have higher standards
applied. Relicensing would be the opportunity to close that gap
and require higher standards for old plants. That opportunity
is being missed. There is no attempt whatsoever to improve,
well, actually that is not quite true. There is a minor
attempt, but in many areas, such as the storage of spent fuel,
evacuation plans and so forth, there is no attempt to improve
the current licensing basis.
Second, as Commissioner Jaczko mentioned, the scope is
extremely narrow. For the moment, relicensing, the safety
regulations only concern the aging managing of long-lived
passive components. They fail to look at everything else such
as vulnerability to terrorism, evacuation plans and spent fuel
storage, even though we know that many issues that currently
present themselves were not examined during initial licensing,
which remember was nearly 40 years ago. Even for the narrow
issues that are reviewed, there is no de novo review, so there
is an assumption that if it has already been signed off on,
everything is fine.
The current relicensing process relies upon the ongoing
safety regulations to solve all the problems, basically. That
would be OK, if those ongoing regulations were perfect.
Unfortunately, like most things in life, they are not. At
minimum, the relicensing process therefore needs to review the
ongoing safety processes and review compliance with the
licensing basis.
I think there are many examples of issues where the NRC has
allowed industry the benefit of the doubt in terms of safety
and has allowed these issues to drag on for far too long. Fire
safety is an example, Davis-Besse is another example.
Now, turning to the safety culture problems, we found many
examples of these. And these have come out primarily through
public participation. At Oyster Creek, when the staff assessed
that the primary containment might not meet the engineering
code, instead of taking action to try to improve that primary
containment, they tried to waive the standard and say the code
was no longer applicable. Really, in a rare moment of
agreement, both the licensee and the intervenors thought the
code was applicable. In effect, the NRC staff wanted to take
the same approach to safety as a well-known Supreme Court
opinion took regarding obscenity: they know it when they see
it. Unsurprisingly, the ASLB, the board rejected the staff's
completely subjective approach.
This shows two things. First, we need safety culture
improvements. Second, we need clear statements of what safety
standards plants must be required to meet. At the moment, we
ended up litigating all the way through the hearing process
what the safety standards were. That simply doesn't make sense.
Both the public, the owners of the plants and potential
investors need to know what the safety standards are. I don't
quite understand how you can regulate safety effectively with
unclear standards.
Second example, in the Vermont Yankee proceeding, the
petitioners pointed out a defect in the metal fatigue
calculations. It turned out that the NRC had failed to spot
that defect during the relicensing of nine other reactors.
Now, we have a lot of prescriptions for solutions, and they
basically involve more transparency, more transparency to
empower and encourage citizens to participate in reactor
oversight. This could include funding of citizens groups, which
has been a longstanding recommendation since Three Mile Island,
never been done; access to licensee documents and more agency
notification of problems and events. We need to change
administrative procedures to allow citizens a fair process. At
the moment, and I have been through this process, I can tell
you, this process is like being Alice in Wonderland at a
communist show trial. The timing is so strict that you can have
an issue admitted yesterday, you might be able to have an issue
admitted tomorrow, but you can never have an issue admitted
today. That is why 44 relicensings went through with no hearing
whatsoever.
Now, even if you get Alice to Wonderland and you get a
hearing, you can't effectively represent the clients at that
hearing, you can't cross-examine witnesses, you can't depose
witnesses. And the NRC staff participate as a party, and they
nearly always oppose the public. Senator Carper, you asked the
question earlier, did the staff assist the licensee. I can tell
you in my hearing, the staff actually tried to exclude two of
my exhibits, even though the licensee was ready to consent to
let them in.
So in conclusion, the experience in relicensing shows that
the alarms regarding nuclear safety are ringing. But like the
Peach Bottom guards, the NRC is snoozing. We have to make sure
we don't relicense rust buckets, and further undermine the
public's confidence in the industry. Public participation works
to highlight safety problems, but the NRC has tried to restrict
meaningful participation as much as possible. Even today, the
NRC is now proposing, it appears, or at least three of the four
commissioners are now saying that mandatory hearings should be
abandoned. That is completely the wrong direction. Public
confidence will only be increased by greater transparency, not
less.
Unless we increase public confidence, nuclear power will
end up being in the cross-hairs of an intense battle. No good
solution will be developed.
So what we need to do is we need to encourage and
invigorate meaningful public participation. Thank you very
much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Webster follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Mr. Webster, thank you very much.
Dr. Romm, you are recognized at this time.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH ROMM, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR AMERICAN
PROGRESS ACTION FUND
Mr. Romm. Mr. Chairman, Senator Voinovich, I am delighted
to be here. I was Special Assistant for Policy and Planning to
Deputy Secretary Bill White from 1993 to 1995. He had oversight
responsibility for all the energy programs, including nuclear
energy. Then I went on to be Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary and then Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Senator Carper. What years did that encompass, please?
Mr. Romm. From 1993 to 1998, I was at the Department of
Energy, the first two as Special Assistant, and then 3 years at
the Office of Efficiency and Renewables.
I was asked to address the cost issue here. I have three
main points. First, the licensing process should not be
expedited because the economic and safety risks are too high.
Second, nuclear power has become so expensive, it is unlikely
to achieve net growth by mid-century without tens of billions
of dollars more in Government subsidies. And third, Congress
should focus Federal support on energy efficiency and
renewables, because they have now become better bets than
nuclear power.
The first point I think is that since the nuclear action
could have such harsh consequences with costs ultimately borne
by the American taxpayer, Congress must enforce the strictest
safety standards. If power plants take six to 10 years to
build, that is because the industry has failed to develop and
standardize a limited set of simple, modular, fail-safe reactor
designs that could tap into a cognitive scale for mass
production. In the American market, there are at least five new
designs.
I don't think delays are due to red tape. Nuclear plants
face similar delays in other countries. Why? Quality problems.
The first advanced reactor design built in the west in Finland
is already 25 percent over budget and 2 years behind schedule
because of ``flawed wells for the reactor's steel liner,
unusable water coolant pipes and suspect concrete in the
foundation.''
Second, once billed as too cheap to meter, nuclear power
simply became ``too costly to matter,'' as the economists put
it back in 2001. Yet nuclear power is now triple the price that
it was in 2001. An industry trade magazine headlined a recent
article, ``For some utilities the capital cost of nuclear power
plants are prohibitive.'' Nuclear economic expert Jim Harding
e-mailed me that his current reasonable estimate for levelized
cost range for nuclear power is 12 to 17 cents per kilowatt
hour lifetime, much higher than current U.S. electric rates.
Last August, AEP CEO Michael Morris said he was not
planning to build any new nuclear plants: ``I am not convinced
we will see a new nuclear station before probably the 2020 time
line. So I do not consider nuclear a near-term solution.''
In October, Florida Power and Light testified that two
units totaling 2,200 megawatts would cost up to $18 billion,
which is a stunning $8,000 per kilowatt. Progress Energy told
Florida regulators that twin 1,100 megawatt plants would cost
$14 billion, which triples estimates the utility offered little
more than a year ago. Its 200 mile transmission project would
add $3 billion more. Total costs, again, nearly $8,000 a
kilowatt. Nuclear plants are now so expensive that Duke Power
actually refused to reveal cost estimates for a proposed plant
in the Carolinas, and a recent California Public Utility
Commission study puts the cost of power from new nuclear plants
again at 15 cents per kilowatt hour. Energy efficiency, wind
and solar all beat that price.
To date, California's efficiency programs have cut total
electricity demand by 40,000 gigawatt hours for two to three
cents per kilowatt hour. California plans to more than double
those savings by 2020. If that effort would reproduce
nationwide, efficiency would deliver enough savings to avoid
the need to build any new U.S. power plants for two decades. A
May report by this Energy Department concluded Americans could
get 300 gigawatts of wind by 2030 at a cost of under 8.5 cents
per kilowatt hour.
Utilities in the Southwest are already contracting for
concentrated solar thermal power at 14 to 15 cents per kilowatt
hour. The Western Governors Association expects that the price
will drop to 12 cents a kilowatt hour within 5 years. That
would include 6 hours of storage capacity, which would allow
concentrated solar to follow the electric load from early
morning to late evening and eliminate the intermittence issue
associated with solar. Even solar photovoltaics with battery
storage can now be installed cheaper than what Florida
ratepayers are being asked for nuclear power.
In conclusion, nuclear power's many limitations, especially
its escalating price, will constrain its growth in America.
Merely maintaining the current percentage of generation
provided by nuclear through the year 2050 will probably require
building some 75 large replacement reactors with a total cost
approaching $1 trillion, and that won't happen without massive
congressional subsidies. A U.S. cap and trade system, such as
you propose, will help all low carbon energy resources,
including nuclear. After 50 years and nearly $100 billion in
subsidies from Congress, if new nuclear plants can't compete in
this emerging low carbon market, then frankly, it doesn't
deserve yet more taxpayer support or any expedited licensing.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Romm follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Dr. Romm, thank you very much. Thanks for
being here and thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Gilbertson, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF H. JOHN GILBERTSON, JR., MANAGING DIRECTOR,
GOLDMAN, SACHS AND COMPANY
Mr. Gilbertson. Chairman Carper, Senator Voinovich, good
afternoon. My name is John Gilbertson. I am a managing director
of Goldman, Sachs. I want to thank you both and the Committee
for the opportunity to discuss financial perspectives on
nuclear power.
Our firm works as an advisor and provider of capital to
integrated electric utilities and power generation companies,
including most of those who have recently filed or intend to
file a new COL application. We have also engaged in frequent
discussions with Members of Congress, their staff, the
Department of Energy, the Administration regarding
implementation of the Title 17 loan guarantee program. In this
work, we have studied the question of how to finance the new
construction of nuclear units.
The capital markets today look favorably on the incumbent
U.S. fleet of 104 units, and upon the companies who operate
them. It is well understood by investors and lenders that the
existing fleet is safe, reliable, low-cost, profitable and non-
emitting. These characteristics have also translated into
superior investment performance. The performance of the U.S.
nuclear industry is, I believe, one of the great turnaround
stories in business history. However, this turnaround did not
occur by accident. Rather, it was the natural result of
economic opportunity, competitive pressures, a natural learning
curve, rigorous regulatory scrutiny with strict emphasis on
safety, the systematic sharing of best practices, regular
process improvements, and consolidation of fleet ownership, all
of which have driven nuclear operators to achieve a noteworthy
record of continuous improvement.
The financial markets also recognize that nuclear needs to
become a larger portion of the U.S. fuel mix. Once they are
built, new nuclear units are expected to supply reliable power
at all-in hourly rates that are comparatively high by recent
standards, but more than competitive against the expected cost
of power in the next 10 to 15 years. This cost advantage is
expected to widen further as the U.S. pursues climate
protection through a cap and trade system which puts an
explicit cost on emitted carbon.
This need for more nuclear power is also completely
independent of the expected growth in energy conservation and
in other sources of clean energy, such as wind or solar. Even
in the most ambitious growth scenarios for conservation, wind
and solar, the U.S. carbon footprint would be further reduced
if there is also significant growth in nuclear share of the
fuel mix. And this need would only be amplified when plug-in
vehicles reach commercial scale, thus creating the opportunity
to use domestically produced clean electricity as a substitute
for imported oil.
However, the markets also recognize that the challenge of
new construction is very difficult. Project sponsors must spend
large amounts of capital for long lead-time procurement before
the project has been licensed by the NRC and before the
construction schedule is set. They must do so at a time of
steep commodity inflation, a smaller work force for nuclear
construction, and sharply increased global demand for
construction services. As a result, the project cost estimates
have risen dramatically in the past year and are expected to
continue rising. In the eyes of lenders and investors, these
projects will face the potential risk of serious delay and cost
overruns.
In the U.S., the companies who would undertake nuclear new
build are under-sized in comparison to the size of each
project. The fragmented structure of the U.S. power industry
leaves these companies, even the largest ones, constrained to
assume the risks in such a project. On their own, we expect
very few of these companies would pursue nuclear new build,
because their existing capital structures simply cannot
withstand the construction risks.
In this regard, the Title 17 loan guarantee program is
essential to restarting the nuclear build cycle in the United
States. However, this program too is under-sized in relation to
the need. The current $18.5 billion in guarantee authority will
be enough to support possibly three new projects. There are
quite a few credible and capable nuclear operators who are
ready to pursue similar projects, but only if they qualify for
a Title 17 guarantee.
The NRC is seen by investors and lenders as a significant
contributor to this industry turnaround, especially to the
notable improvements in safety and reliability of the existing
fleet. In terms of new build, investors are encouraged by the
streamlined nature of the COL process. However, this process
has not yet been tested in the current build cycle, and markets
are still wary of the potential for intervention and prolonged
delay.
The best remedy for this concern will be an actual
licensing experience that is both timely and rigorous. As new
licenses are granted, investors will pay close attention to the
length of time from start to finish. The markets will look for
the NRC to meet current timing expectations and if possible, to
shorten this time period in subsequent applications, while
maintaining the rigor of its decisions with safety always being
the highest priority.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for the opportunity to speak
here today. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gilbertson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Mr. Gilbertson, thank you.
Didn't you join us on a roundtable that we had a while ago?
Mr. Gilbertson. Yes, about a month ago.
Senator Carper. Thanks for coming that day, too.
Real good testimony and timely testimony. We are grateful
for all of it. I am going to start off, Mr. Webster and Dr.
Romm raised some serious concerns here. I don't know if, Mr.
Christian, you or Mr. Pietrangelo want to respond to anything
that they have said.
Mr. Christian. Our company believes that what has worked
well for us to achieve strength is diversity of supply. So we
also believe that wind plays an important role, and we are
engaged in deploying wind and other forms of electric power
generation. We also strongly believe that Americans need to
become more energy efficient and our energy intensity as a
Country is improving. That is, GDP per kilowatt hour consumed.
We have in our company and in our service territory nine
programs to help people conserve and to stimulate demand-side
management.
That said, I think some of the statistics that were cited
with respect to the capabilities of wind or renewables in
general to meet all baseload requirements frankly bring to mind
the caveat that was inserted in some of the Civil War
newspapers that said, important if true. I don't believe it to
be true that renewables can supplant other baseload forms of
electric power generation, and here is why. I think the answer
kind of falls into two or three categories.
First, we will take reliability. Everyone knows that wind
only blows some of the time. We have an obligation to serve,
and State regulation comes into play as well. Our customers
demand electricity all the time, when requested. Recently, in a
heavily wind-supplied area in Texas, ERCOT, they went into a
stage two emergency when the wind did not blow when it was
needed on a peak summer day. This was as little as 2 months
ago. It is pointed out that wind is typically anti-correlated
to peak demand. That is to say, that when you need it the most,
it is there the least, which requires regulated companies, who
have an obligation to serve native load, to simultaneously
install gas-fired generation. If you are going to install gas-
fired generation to meet the requirement that we are under to
meet and serve that load, then you begin to get into capital
inefficiencies.
All that said, I also would like to make the point from an
environmental standpoint that wind and nuclear happen to be
roughly equivalent in terms of greenhouse gas intensity, when
you take into account all of the energy that goes into making
the device and all of the energy that comes out of it. Nuclear,
there is much more energy that goes into it, but you get a lot
more energy out of it over time.
So taking the long view, conservation plays an important
role, extremely important role and this Country needs to become
more efficient. Wind is going to play an important role,
because it is a resource that actually requires no fuel.
But nuclear is going to be required, because even as the
renewed licenses expire at the end of, say, 60 years of
operation, that is 100 gigawatts that will begin to peel off of
the U.S. grid. If we can meet all of our growth and demand
presently with conservation and renewables, we can't replace
that 20 percent baseload that is there and due to roll off as
these plants age.
Senator Carper. All right.
Mr. Pietrangelo, any comments at all?
Mr. Pietrangelo. My only comment is that I thought Mr.
Gilbertson answered the questions about cost. When you do
rigorous financial analysis with a lot of sensitivity studies,
at the end of the day, the cost will be competitive to the
ratepayers. And it is too much comparing apples and oranges
with the numbers that have been thrown around today about what
those numbers include, what year they are looked at in. What is
ultimately important is the price of electricity to be sold
from those plants. The analysis that a bunch of companies have
done, as well as some of the financial analysts that the costs
from new nuclear will be competitive.
Mr. Christian. State public utility commissions will demand
that it be demonstrated to be in the customers' and ratepayers'
interest.
Senator Carper. Mr. Gilbertson, after I heard Dr. Romm
testify, I was sitting here thinking, why would anybody,
individuals or fund managers, want to invest money in nuclear
energy, given the kind of picture that he painted. Again, why
would they?
Mr. Gilbertson. The issue really is, from a financial
perspective, the cost per megawatt-hour over the life of the
project. I think Dr. Romm made quite a few totally valid points
that we wouldn't quarrel with at all. It is expensive on the
front end, capital cost is very high.
What happens with nuclear is, the hourly amorized all-in
cost of power will be a number that today seems high. But over
the life of the project, the number will gradually go down by 5
to 10 percent. And this is notwithstanding what might happen in
the uranium market, which is a sliver of the all-in cost of
nuclear, it can double and it is really not going to change the
hourly cost by much. The all-in hourly cost of nuclear will be
essentially a flat number through the life of the plant. So if
you can give me something that produces power at 20 percent
above today's hourly cost, but tell me it will be flat for 30
years, that cost number is going to be ``in the money'' through
the life of that project, by a lot.
So the issue is getting from today to post-construction. In
my mind, that is what the loan guarantee program is really
about: bridging construction finance, most of all. That is the
problem we are facing right now.
So this is not to quarrel with the cost points: yes, the
costs are rising; yes, it will be high in the front-end; but
through the life of the plant, it will be much cheaper. And I
am saying all of that, frankly, without an explicit cost to
carbon. That would just make the nuclear cost advantage
greater.
Senator Carper. Is the cost of electricity, say, in a coal
power, are new coal plants, the costs of them rising as well?
Mr. Gilbertson. Definitely. Not as fast as nuclear, because
of some of the bottlenecks in the supply chain. Again, I am
sure Dr. Romm could speak to the same point. Some of the
bottlenecks in the nuclear supply chain are a little more
acute. But some of the bottlenecks are not. Some of the
construction service companies are going to build coal plants
the way they are going to build new plants. As we all know,
today, the ``intervention'' industry has made new coal plants,
nearly impossible to get going. Although we will see, as
hopefully clean coal becomes technologically more feasible. But
that is a long way out.
Senator Carper. My time has expired and we will come back
for a second round.
Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. If I listen to you, Mr. Gilbertson, and
then Mr. Christian is talking about going forward, and there
are a lot of other people who are going forward, you just
wonder why are they going forward with these expensive new
reactors to deal with their baseload delivery of energy. And I
think Senator Carper made some reference to it, you have to
look out at the whole situation. If you have coal-fired
facilities, and some of them may have to be, old ones may have
to be closed down if you are uncertain about climate change and
capturing carbon and sequestering it and so forth, that
perhaps, as they look at their prediction for the future, that
even though this is very expensive, that this may be the best
opportunity that they have or option in order to take care of
the baseload.
The other thing is that there is promotion of wind and
solar to the extent that somehow people feel that we are going
to be able to take care of the baseload delivery of energy in
this Country with those. I think that is poppycock. Mr.
Christian, would you like to comment? You are going to put a
whole lot of money in this. Why are you doing it?
Mr. Christian. Again, let me say what has been good for our
company, which is strength through diversity, I believe
strongly would be good for our Country. We need a diverse mix
of energy supplies and we look at and evaluate a great many of
them. As I said, we are into wind and biofuels and coal. We
have the largest pumped storage operation in North America.
But what got us looking at nuclear early in the decade, in
2001, was a change in gas market dynamics, in that there had
been a historic pattern in this Country where gas, which is a
very precious fuel, natural gas, can be used for a great many
things, from fertilizer production to support of industry to
home heating, would have a peak demand in the winter time,
especially when home heating kicked in. Then in the summer
time, gas that is produced in the Gulf of Mexico and
domestically would be pumped underground in storage facilities
in the Northeastern United States, and then withdrawn later.
Early in this decade, gas plants were being built all over
this Country. We saw those dynamics changing and a competition
for peak and mid-merit electric power generation for the
historic putting gas into storage. Eventually, this leads you
to believe that you were going to need other sources of fuel.
We continue to evaluate advanced coal, clean coal, carbon
capture, compatible coal. But we believe nuclear is an
important asset and can't be taken off the table.
As I said, taking the long view, we know were it not for
license renewal, that beginning next year, these nuclear plants
would be starting to come off the line and this 100 gigawatts
would slowly trickle away over the course of about 15 or 20
years. That equivalency in terms of natural gas is about 5
trillion cubic feet. And this Country is trying to drill and
find natural gas to meet its growing demand now. Imagine trying
to do that and also find an additional 5 TCF to replace
nuclear, if it goes away.
The coal equivalency would be about 200 million tons a year
of coal, with the attendant issues there.
So regardless, I think we are pursuing nuclear because we
think it is going to make sense for the customer. We think it
is economic. We think it offers good environmental benefits in
terms of not emitting greenhouse gases on a greenhouse gas
intensity basis, it is roughly the equivalent of wind power.
Senator Voinovich. And no NOx, SOx, mercury or the other
ones.
Mr. Christian. No NOx, SOx. Sure. So we think it is good
for customers, good for shareholders and good for the
environment.
Senator Voinovich. And so you have looked at it all? I
think the point of natural gas, we as a Nation encouraged you
to use natural gas. It is relatively cheap and in the process
of doing that, we woke up 1 day and found out that our natural
gas costs had skyrocketed. We have lost our chemical industry,
at least our exporting from the chemical industry.
So you have to look at that and say, hey, this other is an
option. And you are doing it with your eyes open, because I
have looked at this. You have the loan guarantees that we are
working on, and we are trying to get the cap removed. We had a
meeting with some of your friends from Wall Street, and they
said if you got rid of the cap, on this that this would help a
great deal.
We know that we need the human capital. The Chairman and I
have had meetings on human capital. We know we are looking at a
manufacturing capacity that we are going to need to have, and
the people to run them and so forth. So we do know there is a
lot of challenges here. But from Mr. Christian's point of view
and some others, this makes sense, and I am hoping that you
guys on Wall Street will look at this as maybe something good
to begin to help with.
Just one other thing, and I am not trying to take it, maybe
I am in a way. Mr. Webster, I understand that the press reports
that on Monday you appeared at a hearing to testify on the
State of New Jersey's energy master plan, is that correct?
Mr. Webster. That is correct, Senator.
Senator Voinovich. And is it true that you advocated for
decommissioning all of the State's nuclear plants and rely
entirely on energy efficiency to meet the growing demand for
electricity?
Mr. Webster. No, that is not quite true, actually. What I
said was that Oyster Creek could go offline and we could meet
the energy output through energy efficiency.
Senator Voinovich. And you specifically mentioned Oyster
Creek, to take it off?
Mr. Webster. That is right.
Senator Voinovich. And you think that the demand could be
freer. Because 50 percent of the power in New Jersey comes from
nuclear power.
Mr. Webster. Yes, there are actually four, Senator, there
are four nuclear plants in New Jersey. Oyster Creek is the
smallest at 600 megawatts. The other three plants are about
1,000 megawatts each. We are talking about the need for energy
for 2020. Two of those plants are not actually destined to go
offline before 2020, the licenses, the current licenses don't
expire before 2020. One of those plants expires in 2017. Only
Oyster Creek, the license expires next year. So the discussion
was primarily about Oyster Creek. I pointed out at that
hearing, actually, that New York City has an initiative to
lower New York City's overall energy demand by 30 percent by
2017, and that initiative will be self-funded. It will actually
make more money back saved on energy than it costs by 2015. So
we believe there is a very substantial amount of both taxpayer
money to be saved and energy that can be saved with those kinds
of measures.
Senator Voinovich. So are you opposed to nuclear?
Mr. Webster. My background, I actually did physics in
college. So I don't really think it makes sense to be for or
against a specific technology. Technology done well is great
and technology done badly is not so great. My objective here is
to make sure that when we deploy nuclear technology, we deploy
it in a manner that is safe and that will give us all the
ability to rely on the safety standards that are applied. At
the moment, unfortunately, I don't think that is true.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Mr. Pietrangelo, let me go back to you.
When Senator Sanders was here, he shared with us a large
photograph of the collapsed cooling tower at Vermont Yankee. It
was noted that while it was not a safety issue, that kind of
thing doesn't build confidence in the nuclear industry.
There was a question as to whether or not on some
shortcoming on the part of the operator, there would be a fine
in order. Since it was maybe not a safety issue, there was not
a fine that was going to be handed out by the NRC. What kind of
economic penalty, and I think there was some discussion that
said the plant, the output of the plant was reduced
significantly. I presume there is some cost to the utility when
they do that.
Mr. Pietrangelo. Absolutely.
Senator Carper. Could you just describe the economic
penalty to the utility? Setting aside whether or not there is a
fine by the industry, but just quantify, if you will, the
economic penalty or loss the utility absorbs because of that
kind of failure that we saw witnessed here.
Mr. Pietrangelo. It is on the order of a half a million to
a million dollars a day.
Senator Carper. Say that again?
Mr. Pietrangelo. It is on the order of a half a million to
a million dollars per day that the unit is offline.
Senator Carper. In this case, I don't think it was offline
entirely. It sounded like because it was an environmental issue
involving the release of water back into a body, a larger body
of water, they reduced the output. I think that is what they
were saying.
Mr. Pietrangelo. The current situation is they reduced the
output. I think with the prior situation it did shut down and
then restarted at a lower output level.
Senator Carper. All right.
Mr. Pietrangelo. More broadly, Senator, the turbine and
what we call the balance of plant at a nuclear energy facility
is really the money side of the plant. If that is not running
you are not producing electricity. It may not be safety-
related, but it is certainly important to the reliability of
the station and the generation of the station. That is their
business, so there is a natural incentive to properly maintain
that equipment.
Senator Carper. All right.
Mr. Christian, in your testimony you mentioned that you are
cooperating with General Electric Hitachi on nuclear energy for
the design of the new North Anna reactor. This reactor is one
of the new designs we have been talking about here,
incorporating in this case gravity as a passive safety feature,
rather than using pumps. I would like to know how that
partnership is proceeding. Have you had any difficulties you
could share with us?
Mr. Christian. I think the partnership is proceeding well
at this time. I would comment that as the industry, as I have
observed the performance of various vendors in this business
over the last decade, I have gotten a sense of the extreme
atrophy that did occur in the previous two decades.
We are really trying to get this industry going from a
point of very low capabilities, and those capabilities have
been building for the last decade. But I will tell you at this
time that we are pleased with our relationship with GE Hitachi.
We believe Hitachi brings a lot to the table in the form of
manufacturing and construction experience. GE certainly has a
lot of base capabilities as well.
The reactor itself is an evolutionary design that
incorporates a lot of passive safety features that make it a
significant improvement over current generation.
Senator Carper. Do you expect GE to start manufacturing
parts for nuclear power plants in the U.S.?
Mr. Christian. I would imagine that they will. The Nuclear
Energy Institute also has actually taken a significant
leadership role in stimulating U.S. manufacturing of nuclear
quality components, holding regional workshops around the
Country in which there has been tremendous interest, hundreds,
literally, of vendors and suppliers that are interested in
getting back into nuclear manufacturing and providing good
jobs.
Senator Carper. And when do you expect the NRC to approve
this new GE Hitachi passive design?
Mr. Christian. Their technical review will be completed in
August 2010, then I believe there is some time after that for
hearing, which would support, actually, our construction
schedule, our overall project schedule, which has first safety-
related concrete installation in January 2012. The NRC,
although much has been made today of, are they doing things
fast enough or is the process efficient enough, let me tell
you, as a safe nuclear operator, one that has a profound
respect for the safety of the reactor core, it is in everyone's
interest that the technical reviewers be provided adequate time
to do their jobs with utter probity. It does not concern me if
the issues are done correctly and done one time. Because one of
the overarching themes of Part 52 is to achieve issue
preclusion and foreclosure, so that they don't come up later
after large cap-ex has been expended.
So the NRC schedule does support Dominion's project
schedule, and under that current schedule we would begin
construction in early 2012.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Bell, I don't want you to feel left out here. When you
discussed future work in your written testimony, you outlined
the audits that your staff will conduct during 2009 and beyond.
I think the comment you used was, as resources permit. Do you
have the resources needed to conduct those audits? And if not,
how will you prioritize your workload?
Mr. Bell. Over the last 2 years, the agency's programs have
grown significantly, along with additional resources.
Unfortunately, my office has stayed the same. So unless I get
additional resources, I am going to be hard pressed to do the
mandatory work that we have, in addition to maintaining a
focused approach enhanced coverage of NRC's Nuclear Safety
programs. We have audits planned in the area of nuclear safety,
security, information technology and corporate management. I
will be happy to, for the record, give you a list of the audits
that we have planned for the future.
Senator Carper. We would appreciate that.
Mr. Bell. Yes, sir.
[The referenced information was not received at time of
print.]
Senator Carper. Maybe one more question, Mr. Pietrangelo,
then one for Mr. Webster, and then we will call it a day.
Go back with us, you may have mentioned this in your
testimony, I think you said that the generating capacity or
capability, what is the term of art that you use? Operating
efficiency?
Mr. Pietrangelo. We generate about 20 percent of the----
Senator Carper. No, but 91.5 percent is the----
Mr. Pietrangelo. Capacity factor.
Senator Carper. Capacity factor. And it is now 91.5
percent, which is, I think, quite high.
Mr. Pietrangelo. The industry average.
Senator Carper. Yes, by historical standards. My guess is
in past years, you had some companies, some utilities who
maintained fairly high capacity performance and others did not.
But today, it seems to be the performance is more nearly even
across the industry. Why is that?
Mr. Pietrangelo. I think we have consolidated as an
industry. There are many fewer operators, so we have small
fleets within the fleet that share best practices, that
benchmark each other. Senator Voinovich earlier mentioned the
Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, which seeks excellence,
not just compliance with safety regulations. They share a lot
of the operating experience as well.
So it is really through a whole symbiotic set of activities
from what INPO shares through the benchmarking that our members
do of each other to get those best practices. I think your
observation is absolutely correct, the whole fleet has come
along to the point now where if you would have gone back 10 or
15 years ago, that 91.8 would have been the top quartile of the
industry's performance.
Senator Carper. If you had gone back how many years ago?
Mr. Pietrangelo. Just a few years ago, you would have seen
that. But when I started, back in 1989, at NEI, the industry
average capacity factor was in the 60's, low 70's. So that
amount of improvement in the reliability of the stations really
is the equivalent of building about another 20 to 25 new plants
over that course of time.
Senator Carper. Talk if you will about economic factors and
market forces compelling the industry to do better, setting
aside the work of the NRC and our interest here in this
Subcommittee in driving safety and commitment to efficiency,
reliability.
Mr. Pietrangelo. There was always a fear that with economic
deregulation there would be some incentive to cut corners in
nuclear operations. Well, the exact opposite has occurred.
Because unless you are a safe generator, you are not going to
generate anything at all. So that actually has made management,
I think, focus even more heavily on the operation and the
reliabilities, the efficiencies, the benchmarking we talked
about earlier. I think the overall improvement has been
stunning.
Senator Carper. A question for Mr. Webster, this will
probably be the end of it and we will go have lunch. If we are
lucky.
In Chairman Klein's testimony, he discussed the proposed
legislative change that would eliminate the requirement for the
NRC to conduct uncontested hearings. We had a little discussion
on that, as you recall. Let me ask, do you feel that such a
change is appropriate? I think I know the answer, but go ahead
and let us have it anyway.
Mr. Webster. Well, I always hesitate to keep people from
lunch too long, but I think the answer is absolutely not. We
actually think that the relicensing hearings that have occurred
so far have revealed deficiencies in the staff review of those
applications and have certainly led to an improved safety
situation. The Oyster Creek facility, the proposals for the
safety management of that particular issue have changed five
times. For the better, I mean, we still have a dispute about
are they good enough. But they have changed five times for the
better during that proceeding.
At Vermont Yankee, likewise, an issue that the NRC staff
had missed was highlighted by petitioners. Now, sometimes
petitioners have to come up with money for experts, petitioners
have to find lawyers. It is not easy to be a participant in one
of these NRC hearings, and that is certainly something that we
think should be changed and it should be made a lot easier.
But it can't be expected all the time that the public
should devote their time, their energy and their money to do
what really the NRC should be doing itself. The mandatory
hearings provide some element of check on the staff. In my
testimony, I quote from some ASLB findings in the mandatory
hearings where they say the technical portions of the staff
documents in the record did not support a finding that the
staff's review supported its decisions. And the ASLB went on to
say the confidence in the staff's judgment would have been
materially improved had the more important of these facts been
checked. But it felt bound by the Commission, which said they
should defer to the staff. Without that instruction, the ASLB
would have conducted a much more probing review into the
quality of the review and reporting.
Now, we think that a probing review of the NRC staff, the
quality of their safety review and their reporting, is
something the public deserves. It should be done openly, it
should be done transparently. I find it kind of hard to
understand how all the members here could emphasize the need to
build public confidence and the need for transparency and then
in the same breath, start to eliminate one of the things, one
of the few things left that actually helps in this regard. It
should be enhanced, not reduced.
Senator Carper. Thank you. Any other comments on this point
before we move on? Yes, Mr. Pietrangelo.
Mr. Pietrangelo. If there is no contention, you can have a
hearing with yourself, I suppose. But the Commission's proposal
was only when there were no admissible contentions for a
hearing, and you were still required to have a mandatory
hearing. There is no argument with having hearings when there
is admissible contentions. It is when there are no admissible
contentions, do you still have to have the hearing.
With regard to the technical review, what is forgotten
often is that the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards is
an independent adjunct to the NRC that does a very thorough
technical review of every major licensing action that the NRC
takes, including license renewal, as well as new plants, design
certifications, early site permits, et cetera. It is their
statutory to do that. That is the real technical check on the
staff's work, not the ASLB's that Mr. Webster is referring to.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
I would like to wrap it up, if we could. Mr. Webster, if
you have something just really, really quick.
Mr. Webster. Very quickly, at nine reactors, neither the
staff nor the ACRS found the problems with the metal fatigue
that was found by petitioners. So there is a role for hearings.
The quotes I gave were from a non-contested hearing. There are
lots of issues to deal with, even at non-contested hearings. So
it is simply untrue that these uncontested hearings are just
pro forma.
Senator Carper. Thank you all very, very much. This has run
a bit longer than I anticipated, but it has been enormously
helpful for me and I hope for others of my colleagues. Thank
you for spending this time with us.
I will close with just a thought. I spent 23 years of my
life as a Naval flight officer, and a lot of time in airplanes,
and another 4 years before that as a midshipman. We have a big
Air Force base in Delaware called Dover Air Force base. It is a
big airlift base. We are a base where we have some of the
largest airplanes in the world, called C-5s. We have a mix of
aircraft called C-17s, which are somewhat smaller cargo
aircraft.
C-5s, the oldest of the C-5s are probably close to 40 years
old. We have had to go through a decisionmaking process within
the Air Force and the Pentagon and the Congress to decide
whether or not it makes sense to take 40-year old aircraft and
to change their engines, change their hydraulic systems, change
out all kinds of systems in the aircraft and to fly them for
another 20 or 30 or 40 years. The Air Force actually took a
number of the aircraft, one of them they literally tore apart,
looking for fatigue and deterioration and all. Then a number of
other aircraft they looked, they didn't did a complete tear-
down but gave them a very close examination.
The Air Force ultimately concluded that they could probably
fly these planes, with the wings and fuselages, for another 30
or 40 years. And the cost of fully modernizing a C-5 turned out
to be about one-third the cost of buying a new C-17. And the
capability, the cargo capability of the C-5 is roughly twice
that of a C-17. And they fly further without being refueled. So
it had the effect of about six times the airlift capability for
a C-5 as opposed to a new C-17.
There are some people in the Air Force who want to get rid
of the C-5s, send them off to the bone yard. They didn't call
them rust buckets, but they said they were old, they were
aging, they were older than the people who fly them and all.
Sometimes, if we maintain an aircraft well, it can exceed our
expectations. If we don't, and if they are poorly designed,
they won't exceed our expectations or even meet our
expectations.
So as we go forward, that may be an example for us to keep
in mind. We are going to modernize the C-5s, at least the C-
5Bs, and hopefully they will fly safely for another 30 or 40
years, and provide cost-effective airlift. And hopefully we
will get that kind of use out of our nuclear power plants. God
knows we have invested enough in them. It will be comforting to
know that we are going to continue to benefit from them for
some time to come.
Again, my thanks to each of you for your patience, for
staying here today, for your preparation, for your responses to
our questions. With that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
Statement of Hon. Lamar Alexander, U.S. Senator from the
State of Tennessee
With gasoline rising above $4 per gallon and oil selling
for more than $140 per barrel, I believe the best way for
Congress to lower gasoline prices is a strategy based on these
four words: ``find more, use less.'' Congress already took two
steps last year toward ``using less'' when it enacted the
Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) in 2007, which
increased the average fuel efficiency standards for cars and
light duty trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 and increased
the Renewable Fuel Standard to 36 billion gallons by 2022.
The Renewable Fuel Standard target of 36 billion gallons is
the equivalent of 1.6 million barrels of oil per day. The
Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) included in EISA and tax
incentives in the recently enacted farm bill have begun to
accelerate our nation's transition from corn-based ethanol to
cellulosic ethanol--in other words, shifting the focus from
crops we eat to crops we don't eat.
Just as there were possible unintended impacts on food
prices from the use of corn-based ethanol, EPA should be alert
to any potential unintended consequences as the country shifts
to cellulosic ethanol, particularly of the effect of the RFS's
sustainability criteria on the use of woody biomass for
cellulosic ethanol and on the paper industry that relies on
woody biomass.
In Tennessee, Governor Bredesen has instituted a
comprehensive program to encourage cellulosic ethanol
production from switchgrass. With these types of initiatives to
produce advanced ethanol from sources other than food stocks, I
am hopeful that the RFS will continue to play an important role
in diversifying the nation's transportation fuels and in
putting downward pressure on gasoline prices. In the longer
term, I support moving from a RFS to a Low Carbon Fuel Standard
which is technology neutral and encourages more alternative
fuels, such as electricity in plug-in electric cars and trucks
and hydrogen.
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