Observations from the NRC’s May 10th Public Meeting on Emergency Planning for SMRs & New Reactor Technologies

Slides from the meeting can be found here.

A few observations from the meeting—

• Although early in the process, if executed correctly, the NRC’s Emergency Planning rulemaking could significantly reduce costs for new small modular reactors, advanced reactors, and even medical isotope reactors.

• There was significant discussion during the meeting on a number of areas, but in particular—

  • Whether the rule would be “risk-informed.”

  • How site-specific features would be factored into the rulemaking.

  • How proposed industrial facilities near a nuclear power plant would affect emergency planning.

The NRC staff made clear during the meeting that the rulemaking would be risk-informed and consequence-oriented, and would work to incorporate the safety advances provided by new reactor designs.

• The NRC staff emphasized that it welcomes written comments as it moves forward with this rulemaking, and will lean on them in developing a proposed rule.  Comments on the regulatory basis document are due by June 27, 2017.

Authored by Amy Roma and Sachin Desai.