A Quicker Path To Approval For New Reactors

By Amy Harder  

Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa.

NJ: NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko recently told me that if the license review process is going to be streamlined, attention must be directed toward the applicants, including reactor vendors and utility companies, not the NRC. The applicants would have to submit more complete and thorough applications. What do you think?

Pitts: It is directed toward the applicant because under the two-year program, eligible applicants have to submit a reactor whose design has already been certified by the NRC. And they have to build the new reactor on or adjacent to a site where reactors already operate. And it has to be a plant that is not subject to any NRC actions to cite them. And it has to be submitted with a completed, combined construction operating permit application, which has been already documented by the NRC. Those are all criteria that are very strict, that would help cut the time down for a needed permit.

NJ: Critics say that those are good criteria, but that the NRC should not be congressionally mandated to speed up its review process.

Pitts: I think if you look currently there are something like 17 license applications right now for 26 new nuclear power reactors pending before the NRC. We know that this would take 40 months or so -- that's an estimate -- to review each of the new nuclear reactor applications. So, what we're trying to do is just cut that about in half, put it on the fast track, if you will.

NJ: Your bill also calls upon the NRC to allow more reactor designs to enter the marketplace. Yet the NRC chairman says that standardizing designs and limiting their number is the best way to speed up the process.

Pitts: We would direct the NRC to develop a set of guidelines where new nuclear plant designs, instead of mandating a specific technology to a specific plant design... would allow for other nuclear reactor technologies to be used. Make it a little bit more diverse and competitive.

NJ: Will it take the NRC longer to review new reactor designs?

Pitts: That is something that is in the bill, in the idea of fast-track.... They've got to develop these sets of guidelines, which will take some time, but after they're developed it would certainly help speed up the process and make for more innovation....

One of the problems now -- the U.S. really is not much in the marketplace like it could be. The bill, I think, helps break down some of the obstacles for the new technologies entering into the marketplace. We also provide for, at the same time, the NRC to develop the regulators -- the human regulators -- that would develop and help regulate this new generation of technologies. So, we provide funds in there to help them cope with this.

NJ: You lay out several criteria that utilities must fulfill before they could qualify for this streamlined review process. Have you looked at how many current applications would qualify?

Pitts: No, I have not.

NJ: Would you have an estimate of how feasible these criteria would be to meet?

Pitts: Well, no. I worked with my industry. I have a couple of companies in the industry that have nuclear power plants. I worked with a think tank; they could probably give you that information.

NJ: What companies are in your district?

Pitts: I have Exelon and I have PPL, and I worked with Heritage [Foundation].

NJ: Is expediting and streamlining the review process the best way to get nuclear energy more into the energy mix?

Pitts: Yes. I think one of the big blockages has been how long it takes to get a return on what you're going to invest.... We're fully funding other aspects of the NRC programs -- the four-year process and so forth. We're fully trying to expedite and encourage the next-generation nuclear power plants and encourage those public-private partnerships that are in existence. We're just trying to add a second track to help. We're not trying to interfere with the existing programs. And we're not, certainly, cutting back on the safety aspects. We call for them to complete their safety evaluation reports and just do it in a little faster time.

NJ: What if the agency comes back and says that they can't do it in that time period without jeopardizing safety?

Pitts: I'll have to deal with that then. It's a matter of will right now. They're taking a lot longer and we urge the drafting issuance of the environmental impact statement within 12 months of the application being docketed and the final EIS [environmental impact statement] within 18 months. And, hearings under our bill could begin within the issuance of the draft EIS, and this allows the NRC to resolve some of the licensing issues within the 24 months.

NJ: Another glaring issue in the nuclear energy debate is where to put spent fuel. With Yucca Mountain all but dead, politically, what are our options?

Pitts: We could reprocess fuel like France does. There's technology out there that can be developed right here in the United States. They're successfully doing reprocessing, we could do the same thing. That would take care about 95 percent of the problem right there.

NJ: Why isn't the industry developing reprocessing technologies and the like?

Pitts: I don't think economically you have the incentives right now.

NJ: A lot of people would say the same thing about new reactors, that there just isn't the investment interest there. Are you hoping that this bill would encourage more investors?

Pitts: Yeah, market-based policies that would encourage the kind of investment and competition would be economically sound proposals.

NJ: What prompted you to introduce this bill?

Pitts: I have nuclear energy in my district -- Exelon, PPL, very good companies. And in chatting and talking with them and in looking at this Energy and Commerce cap-and-trade bill and the virtually silence -- they had, in the bill that they brought to committee, they had 50 pages on light bulbs and two sentences on nuclear power. There was just a gaping void there, and that's why I started looking into this and jumped into it. We haven't built a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years, and we should accelerate and try to help the NRC and the industry develop so that we can get back in the world marketplace on this.

NJ: What do you think of the bill's prospects?

Pitts: Well, we're right now just collecting co-sponsors, educating members. It's a matter of education, and we've got to do a lot of that and try to get better and more sponsorship, bipartisan sponsorship. Hopefully it will stimulate some discussion around the country, make people more aware of the need.