Nuclear Chief: Safety Moves Behind Schedule
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WASHINGTON—Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said Tuesday the agency wasn't on pace to meet its own timeline for improving safety at U.S. nuclear plants in response to the meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant a year ago.
The NRC will soon issue its first orders in response to the Fukushima accident, but it is also weighing a host of regulatory changes that could impose extra costs on the operators of the 104 reactors in the U.S.
In an interview, Mr. Jaczko said the agency had "made progress" but risked failing to meet its goal of making all the regulatory changes within five years. "There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done," he said.
Mr. Jaczko's comments offered more evidence of a gap between him and the four other NRC commissioners on how the agency should proceed in the wake of Fukushima, and came as the nuclear industry moved forward with its own set of safety improvements.
In a separate interview, Commissioner William Magwood said he felt the commission "may actually be ahead of schedule" in meeting the five-year goal.
In particular, Mr. Jaczko said he was concerned that the commission's other four members hadn't ruled out requiring a cost-benefit analysis of some of the changes recommended last summer by an agency task force appointed to assess nuclear safety. The other members' position raised a concern about "whether we will really as a commission be able to impose the requirements on industry," he said.
The task force said the NRC should require a number of upgrades regardless of cost—a position Mr. Jaczko has supported. His colleagues want to evaluate the recommendations on a case-by-case basis.
Mr. Magwood said Tuesday the task force's recommendations were "quite reasonable, but at the same time I think we're much stronger if we have a firmer base of information that we make a decision on."
He said it was important to evaluate the safety benefits of each recommendation "because then you know whether it's worth the investment [of] time and resources."
The NRC commissioners agree on some points. They all say U.S. nuclear plants are safe, and voted unanimously last week to require nuclear operators to carry out an initial set of upgrades, including better monitoring of pools of spent nuclear fuel.
The nuclear industry on Tuesday detailed its own plan for bolstering safety systems that could be needed during a natural disaster or terrorist attack, focusing on the lessons from Fukushima, where a massive earthquake and tsunami knocked out power to multiple reactors at once and disabled pumps needed to cool nuclear fuel.
The industry plan would require each nuclear plant to add portable water pumps and backup generators located in "diverse" locations around the plant, with the idea that at least some of the backup equipment would survive a Fukushima-like catastrophe. In addition, the industry said it would establish as many as a dozen regional facilities with even more backup equipment that could be airlifted to a plant under stress.
"There will be sufficient equipment so that there will be no period of time where we lose those safety functions," said Charles Pardee, chief operating officer of the power-generation unit of Exelon Corp.,
Mr. Pardee, who is leading the industry task force, said the upgrades could cost $1 million or more per plant. The plan took a similar approach to rules the NRC is considering, he said.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear watchdog group, has questioned whether it is prudent for the industry to move forward without clear guidance from regulators.
Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist with the group, said Tuesday the industry's decision to act first may make it politically difficult for the NRC to require more stringent safety upgrades later. The industry is "establishing its own guidelines and then daring the NRC to come and tell them that they're not adequate," Mr. Lyman said. "Sometimes speed is not a virtue."
Messrs. Jaczko and Magwood said they appreciated the industry's efforts. But Mr. Jaczko said they didn't address all of the NRC task force's recommendations, and Mr. Magwood said it was "too early to tell" if the NRC would be satisfied with the industry plan.
The NRC will soon issue its first orders in response to the Fukushima accident, but it is also weighing a host of regulatory changes that could impose extra costs on the operators of the 104 reactors in the U.S.
In an interview, Mr. Jaczko said the agency had "made progress" but risked failing to meet its goal of making all the regulatory changes within five years. "There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done," he said.
Mr. Jaczko's comments offered more evidence of a gap between him and the four other NRC commissioners on how the agency should proceed in the wake of Fukushima, and came as the nuclear industry moved forward with its own set of safety improvements.
In a separate interview, Commissioner William Magwood said he felt the commission "may actually be ahead of schedule" in meeting the five-year goal.
In particular, Mr. Jaczko said he was concerned that the commission's other four members hadn't ruled out requiring a cost-benefit analysis of some of the changes recommended last summer by an agency task force appointed to assess nuclear safety. The other members' position raised a concern about "whether we will really as a commission be able to impose the requirements on industry," he said.
The task force said the NRC should require a number of upgrades regardless of cost—a position Mr. Jaczko has supported. His colleagues want to evaluate the recommendations on a case-by-case basis.
Mr. Magwood said Tuesday the task force's recommendations were "quite reasonable, but at the same time I think we're much stronger if we have a firmer base of information that we make a decision on."
He said it was important to evaluate the safety benefits of each recommendation "because then you know whether it's worth the investment [of] time and resources."
The NRC commissioners agree on some points. They all say U.S. nuclear plants are safe, and voted unanimously last week to require nuclear operators to carry out an initial set of upgrades, including better monitoring of pools of spent nuclear fuel.
The nuclear industry on Tuesday detailed its own plan for bolstering safety systems that could be needed during a natural disaster or terrorist attack, focusing on the lessons from Fukushima, where a massive earthquake and tsunami knocked out power to multiple reactors at once and disabled pumps needed to cool nuclear fuel.
The industry plan would require each nuclear plant to add portable water pumps and backup generators located in "diverse" locations around the plant, with the idea that at least some of the backup equipment would survive a Fukushima-like catastrophe. In addition, the industry said it would establish as many as a dozen regional facilities with even more backup equipment that could be airlifted to a plant under stress.
"There will be sufficient equipment so that there will be no period of time where we lose those safety functions," said Charles Pardee, chief operating officer of the power-generation unit of Exelon Corp.,
Mr. Pardee, who is leading the industry task force, said the upgrades could cost $1 million or more per plant. The plan took a similar approach to rules the NRC is considering, he said.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear watchdog group, has questioned whether it is prudent for the industry to move forward without clear guidance from regulators.
Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist with the group, said Tuesday the industry's decision to act first may make it politically difficult for the NRC to require more stringent safety upgrades later. The industry is "establishing its own guidelines and then daring the NRC to come and tell them that they're not adequate," Mr. Lyman said. "Sometimes speed is not a virtue."
Messrs. Jaczko and Magwood said they appreciated the industry's efforts. But Mr. Jaczko said they didn't address all of the NRC task force's recommendations, and Mr. Magwood said it was "too early to tell" if the NRC would be satisfied with the industry plan.
