[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 250 (Tuesday, December 31, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 107168-107171]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-31376]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket No. 70-7004; NRC-2024-0219]
American Centrifuge Operating, LLC; American Centrifuge Plant;
Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice; issuance.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering
amending Special Nuclear Material (SNM) License No. SNM-2011, issued on
April 13, 2007, to American Centrifuge Operating, LLC (ACO) for the
operation of the American Centrifuge Plant (ACP). The NRC is
considering extending authorization of the high-assay, low-enriched
uranium (HALEU) demonstration program operations to continue beyond
December 31, 2024, through June 30, 2025. In the event of an extension
of ACO's HALEU contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),
potentially the authorization would be extended through the revised
contract period. For this proposed action, the NRC staff is issuing an
environmental assessment (EA) and finding of no significant impact
(FONSI).
DATES: The EA and FONSI referenced in this document are available on
December 31, 2024.
ADDRESSES: Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2024-0219 when contacting the
NRC about the availability of information regarding this document. You
may obtain publicly available information related to this document
using any of the following methods:
Federal Rulemaking Website: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2024-0219. Address
questions about Docket IDs in Regulations.gov to Stacy Schumann;
telephone: 301-415-0624; email: [email protected]. For technical
questions, contact the individual listed in the ``For Further
Information Contact'' section of this document.
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System
(ADAMS): You may obtain publicly available documents online in the
ADAMS Public Documents collection at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the search, select ``Begin Web-based ADAMS
Search.'' For problems with ADAMS, please contact the NRC's Public
Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, at 301-415-4737,
or by email to [email protected]. For the convenience of the reader,
instructions about obtaining materials referenced in this document are
provided in the ``Availability of Documents'' section.
NRC's PDR: The PDR, where you may examine and order copies
of publicly available documents, is open by appointment. To make an
appointment to visit the PDR, please send an email to
[email protected] or call 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, between 8
a.m. and 4 p.m. eastern time (ET), Monday through Friday, except
Federal holidays.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Christine Pineda, Office of Nuclear
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S.
[[Page 107169]]
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone:
301-415-6789; email: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Introduction
The NRC staff is considering an amendment of ACO's license (SNM-
2011) to remove the contract expiration date from License Condition
(LC) 15 and to add a new LC (LC 31), requiring ACO to provide the NRC
prior notification of any DOE-ACO contract changes that are material to
the ACP license SNM-2011, including contract extensions. Although the
current DOE-ACO contract for operations of the HALEU program continues
through June 30, 2025, the NRC staff evaluated potential impacts for
the additional six months of operations in the event the DOE-ACO
contract expiration date is extended. ACO's proposed modification of LC
15, and the addition of LC 31 would streamline the NRC staff's review
of future ACO contract modifications for minor, non-safety-related and
non-security-related changes to the contract, such as a simple 6-month
contract extension.
The NRC initially authorized the operation of the HALEU
demonstration cascade at the ACP in Pike County, Ohio in June 2021. In
September 2024, the NRC approved a license amendment to increase ACO's
licensed material possession limits to support the continued production
of HALEU uranium hexafluoride (UF6) until December 31, 2024.
Under the proposed action, HALEU operations would continue as currently
approved for another six months (until June 30, 2025).
ACO is producing HALEU for the DOE. HALEU is uranium that has been
enriched so that the concentration of the fissile isotope U-235 is
between 5 and 20 percent of the mass of the uranium. The DOE awarded a
3-phase demonstration contract to ACO to enrich uranium up to 20
percent in the HALEU cascade. The expiration date of the current phase
(Phase 2) of the DOE-ACO contract is June 30, 2025; however, the DOE
could choose to extend Phase 2 of the DOE-ACO contract, to ensure
continued operations of the HALEU program.
The DOE-ACO Phase 3 program involves up to three, 3-year periods of
operation of the HALEU cascade; however, implementation of Phase 3 in
its three stages requires Congressional appropriations as well as the
NRC's review of future licensing requests. Phase 3 operations could
begin on July 1, 2025, conditional on (1) Congressional appropriations,
(2) the signing of the DOE-ACO Phase 3 contract, (3) ACO's submission
of a license amendment request for Phase 3, and (4) the NRC staff's
review and approval of a request. If the DOE does not extend Phase 2 of
the DOE-ACO contract, or the Phase 3 HALEU operations are not approved
on or before June 30, 2025, ACO would be required to shut down Phase 2
HALEU operations. In the event of approval of continued operations, the
NRC staff evaluated the environmental impacts of allowing the Phase 2
HALEU program to continue until December 31, 2025, without changes in
operations, provided requirements of LC 15 and LC 31 are met.
As required in section 51.21 of title 10 of the Code of Federal
Regulations (10 CFR), ``Criteria for and identification of licensing
and regulatory actions requiring environmental assessments,'' the NRC
developed an EA for the current license amendment request to evaluate
the environmental impacts of continued operations until December 31,
2025. Based on the results of the EA that follows, the NRC has
determined not to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for
the amendment and is issuing a FONSI.
II. Environmental Assessment
Description of the Proposed Action
The NRC is proposing to amend ACO's license to remove the HALEU
contract expiration date from LC 15, and to add LC 31, which requires
ACO to provide prior notification to the NRC of any contract changes
that are material to the ACP license SNM-2011, including contract
extensions. During this potential period of extended operation, ACO
would continue enrichment activities as approved in the license. The
staff assessed the potential environmental effects of continuing HALEU
operations in its September 2024 EA, finding continued operations does
not involve construction of new buildings, ground-disturbing
activities, the shipment of HALEU offsite, or changes to the NRC-
approved HALEU centrifuge cascade design. The proposed action is
described in the licensee's application dated September 12, 2024, and
its supplements dated November 7, 2024, and November 21, 2024.
The NRC staff also considered environmental impacts associated with
the NRC's review and approval of the financial documentation provided
with ACO's LAR. The NRC staff finds ACO's financial qualifications,
decommissioning funding, and nuclear insurance indemnification are
categorically excluded from environmental review under the NRC's
regulations in 10 CFR 51.22(c)(10)(i), which applies to a surety,
insurance, and/or indemnity.
Need for the Proposed Action
The proposed action would allow ACO to continue operating the HALEU
demonstration cascade as provided in ACO's contract with DOE and in
accordance with ACO's license. The DOE has extended the contract for
Phase 2 HALEU operations to June 30, 2025.
Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action
In September 2024, the NRC staff prepared an EA for the NRC's
review and approval of an increase in licensed material possession
limits to support continued HALEU production. The September 2024 EA
determined that the proposed increase in possession limits for HALEU
production until December 31, 2024, would not significantly affect the
quality of the human environment. The NRC staff issued that EA and a
FONSI on September 19, 2024. The environmental review for this proposed
action, considers the continued Phase 2 operations through December 31,
2025, and evaluates the potential impacts of operations for another
twelve months.
The NRC staff assessed the potential environmental impacts of a
twelve-month continuation of operations on land use; historic and
cultural resources; visual and scenic resources; climatology,
meteorology and air quality; geology and soils; water resources;
ecological resources; socioeconomics; noise; traffic and
transportation; public and occupational health and safety; and waste
management. The NRC staff determined that facility operations for the
current action, are unchanged from those evaluated in the NRC's
September 2024 EA, except for the duration of operations. The NRC staff
finds the additional period of operations would not affect most
resource areas and not have significant impacts on air quality,
transportation, occupational health and safety, and waste management.
ACO would not make changes to the enrichment processes or to the
outside portions of buildings. All HALEU produced would continue to be
stored onsite. All enrichment activities would continue to take place
indoors, resulting in no changes to noise levels. Because operations
would continue entirely inside buildings, including storage of
additional enriched UF6, depleted UF6, and
wastes, and because the current rate of HALEU production would not
change, there would be no change to
[[Page 107170]]
potential impacts on public health and safety except that the potential
for these previously assessed impacts would be extended by up to twelve
months. Because additional employees would not be required for the
proposed action, there would be no change to socioeconomic impacts
already assessed.
The NRC's September 2024 EA concluded that continued HALEU
operations with the possession limit increase would not have
significant impacts on air quality, occupational health and safety,
waste management, and transportation, and that these impacts were
bounded by the impacts assessed in previous NRC environmental
assessments, as documented in the NRC's 2021 EA for the approval of the
HALEU program. This EA assesses the continued operations until December
31, 2025, with continuation of the same impacts as described further in
the following paragraphs.
Air Quality: The September 2024 EA for the possession limit
increase request determined that continued operations would not affect
the rates of air emissions containing hydrogen fluoride (HF) and
radionuclides because the rate of HALEU production would remain
unchanged from the rates evaluated in the NRC's 2021 licensing document
and EA for the original HALEU demonstration. Under the current action,
the potential non-radiological and radiological air emissions would
continue at least another six months, and may continue for as long as
twelve months. As explained in the September 2024 EA, for the period
July through December 2023, the average exposure to HF for the
maximally exposed individual was 4.8 x 10-9 micrograms per
cubic meter, which is significantly lower than the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration's 8-hour permissible exposure limit for HF of
2000 micrograms per cubic meter. As indicated in ACO's effluent
monitoring report for the period of January 1 through June 30, 2024,
the average HF concentration was calculated to be 2.4 x 10-7
micrograms per cubic meter. Uranium isotopes in air emissions in the
same effluent monitoring report were 0.00894 millicuries U-234, 0.0011
millicuries U-235, and 0.00875 millicuries U-238. The report estimated
that the public dose from the releases of uranium isotopes over the
previous year (June 2023 through June 2024) is 1.6 x 10-5
millirem. The emission levels under Phase 2 operations are and would
continue to be well below regulatory limits through December 31, 2025.
Therefore, the NRC staff concludes the potential air quality impacts of
an additional twelve-month extension of Phase 2 operations would not be
significant.
Occupational Health and Safety: The staff evaluated the potential
impacts on worker health of twelve months of continued operations
beyond the period evaluated in the September 2024 EA. HALEU enrichment
activities must comply with the NRC regulations, including 10 CFR part
20, subpart C, ``Occupational Dose Limits for Adults,'' and 10 CFR part
20, subpart D, ``Radiation Dose Limits for Individual Members of the
Public'' as well as the conditions specified in the license. The NRC
staff also assessed the most recent effluent monitoring report for the
period of January 1 through June 30 of 2024, which reported that total
exposure to the nearest resident for the prior 12 months (June 2023
through June 2024) was 1.6 x 10-5 millirem. The NRC staff
concludes that dose limits in 10 CFR part 20 for workers (50 mSv/yr or
5000 mrem/yr) and for members of the public (1 mSv/yr or 100 mrem/yr)
will continue to be met.
As such, the NRC staff concludes that radiological impacts on
workers would not be noticeably different from the impacts as assessed
in the NRC's September 2024 EA and therefore the potential impacts
would not be significant. In the ``Air Quality'' paragraph of this
notice, the NRC staff states the extension of Phase 2 HALEU operations
would not significantly increase non-radiological HF emissions and
worker exposures and would remain significantly lower than the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration's 8-hour limit for HF of
2000 micrograms per cubic meter.
Transportation: The September 2024 EA evaluated the potential
environmental impacts for the increase in possession limits, finding
new shipments of feed material to support the production of an
increased amount of HALEU would be few in number. The EA concluded the
few additional shipments of feed material through December 2024 would
not have a noticeable impact on transportation. Moreover, the few
additional shipments of feed material over an additional 12 months
would have an insignificant impact, when compared with the 1,100 yearly
shipments estimated for the commercial ACP.
Waste Management: In the September 2024 EA for the increase in
possession limits the NRC staff found that HALEU operations would
insignificantly increase the quantity of low-level radioactive waste.
Specifically, the EA stated that 400 cubic feet of low-level
radioactive waste would be generated per quarter through December 31,
2024. The staff expects the same quantity of waste to be generated for
up to twelve additional months of operations. Therefore, the NRC staff
concludes that the impacts from waste management through December 31,
2025, would not be significant.
Environmental Impacts of the Alternatives to the Proposed Action
As an alternative to the proposed action, the staff considered
denial of the proposed action (i.e., the ``no-action'' alternative).
Under the no-action alternative, ACO would cease operating the HALEU
cascade on December 31, 2024. The no-action alternative could result in
ACO being unable to meet the terms of its contract with DOE. The
potential environmental impacts of the no-action alternative would be
the same as the NRC's finding of no significant impact reported in the
September 2024 EA.
Agencies and Persons Consulted
In accordance with NRC policy, on November 4, 2024, the staff
consulted with the Ohio Emergency Management Agency, the Ohio
Environmental Protection Agency, the Ohio Department of Health, and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Region 5 office
regarding the EA and FONSI. The NRC received no comments on the EA.
Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA)
requires Federal agencies to consider the effects of their undertakings
on historic properties. The proposed action is not a type of activity
that has the potential to cause effects on any historic properties that
may be present. Therefore, in accordance with 36 CFR 800.3(a)(1), the
NRC has no further obligation under Section 106 of the NHPA.
Nevertheless, the NRC staff provided a courtesy notification of the
proposed action to the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office on
November 4, 2024.
Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) requires that, prior
to taking a proposed action, Federal agencies determine whether the
proposed Federal action may affect endangered or threatened species or
their critical habitats. The proposed action has no potential to affect
any special status species or habitats. Therefore, no consultation is
required under Section 7 of the ESA.
III. Finding of No Significant Impact
The NRC staff prepared this EA as part of its review of the
proposed action. The NRC staff concludes there would be no significant
environmental impacts
[[Page 107171]]
from the extension of HALEU operations through December 31, 2025.
Therefore, staff finds the preparation of an EIS is not warranted.
Accordingly, the NRC determined that a FONSI is appropriate. In
accordance with 10 CFR 51.32(a)(4), the FONSI incorporates the EA set
forth in this notice by reference.
IV. Availability of Documents
The documents identified in the following table are available to
interested persons through one or more of the following methods, as
indicated.
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ADAMS accession No./
Document description Federal Register citation/
website
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License Amendment Request for American ML24262A084.
Centrifuge Operating, LLC's License
Application and Supporting Documents for
the American Centrifuge Plant, dated
September 12, 2024.
Supplement to License Amendment Request for ML24324A321 (Package).
American Centrifuge Operating, LLC's
License Application for the American
Centrifuge Plant, dated November 4, 2024.
Supplement to License Amendment Request for ML24331A050.
American Centrifuge Operating, LLC's
License Application for the American
Centrifuge Plant, dated November 21, 2024.
NRC Email to ACO re: NRC's Acceptance for ML24298A160.
Detailed Review of American Centrifuge
Operating's Request to Extend Phase II
HALEU Operations, dated October 21, 2024.
License Amendment 24, NRC Approval of ML24068A189.
American Centrifuge Operating's Amendment
Request to Increase its Possession Limits
to Support HALEU Production at the
American Centrifuge Plant, dated September
20, 2024.
License SNM-2011, Amendment 24, dated ML24068A191.
September 20, 2024.
EA for Proposed License Amendment to ML24254A206.
Increase Possession Limits for Licensed
Material for the HALEU Program at the
American Centrifuge Plant, Piketon, Ohio,
dated September 2024.
Federal Register Notice for EA Proposed 89 FR 76871
License Amendment to Increase Possession ML24214A324.
Limits for Licensed Material for the HALEU
Program at the American Centrifuge Plant,
Piketon, Ohio, publication date September
19, 2024.
License Amendment 13, NRC Approval of ML21138A826 (Package).
American Centrifuge Operating's Request
Operate Sixteen Centrifuges to Demonstrate
Production of High-Assay Low-Enriched
Uranium, dated June 11, 2021.
American Centrifuge Operating Effluent ML24253A176
Reporting for the Period of January 1 ML24253A175 (corrected
through June 30, 2024; dated August 29, report).
2024. Corrected report, dated September 5,
2024.
Email transmitting the draft EA to Ohio ML24346A064.
agencies for review, dated November 4,
2024.
Email to EPA Region 5 transmitting the ML24346A059.
draft EA for review, dated November 4,
2024.
Email to Ohio State Historic Preservation ML24346A060.
Office re: courtesy notification of NRC
review of ACO's license amendment request,
dated November 4, 2024.
Biden-Harris Administration Announces 6 https://www.energy.gov/ne/
Contracts to Spur America's Domestic HALEU articles/biden-harris-
Supply Chain as Part of Investing in administration-announces-6-
America Agenda, dated October 8, 2024. contracts-spur-americas-
domestic-haleu-supply.
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Dated: December 23, 2024.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Diana Diaz Toro,
Acting Chief, Environmental Project Management, Branch 2, Division of
Rulemaking, Environmental, and Financial Support, Office of Nuclear
Material Safety, and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 2024-31376 Filed 12-30-24; 8:45 am]
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