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Severe reactor accidents can be mitigated, and are unlikely to release much -- if any --radioactivity even if they are not, NRC staffers said March 11. The NRC's state-of-the-art reactor consequences analysis, or Soarca, attempts to quantify the probability and likely offsite health consequences of severe reactor accidents, beginning with Exelon Nuclear's Peach Bottom and Dominion's Surry plants. Analysis for those stations has been completed and a report will be completed by May, NRC's Charles Tinkler said in his presentation at the agency's annual Regulatory Information Conference in Rockville, Maryland. Jason Schaperow of NRC said the staff's "preliminary conclusions" are that all accident scenarios analyzed for Peach Bottom and Surry "can reasonably be mitigated." Sensitivity analyses concluded that, even if no mitigation measures were taken, there would be no large early releases of radioactivity, due to the relatively slow progression of the accidents and the small probability of containment failure, Schaperow said. Likely radioactive releases from the accidents analyzed so far in Soarca "are dramatically smaller" than those predicted in a 1982 NRC analysis conducted for use in siting new units, Schaperow said. The late Commissioner Edward McGaffigan and some industry officials were highly critical of that report, which they said was unrealistically conservative in its assumptions.

The Isle of Wight Citizens Association will talk about safety at the Surry nuclear power plant and county spending during a meeting Monday. The group meets at 7 p.m. at the Carrollton Library on New Towne Haven Lane. Two Dominion Virginia Power representatives will be on hand to answer the question of how safe is the nuclear power plant. The group will also talk about whether county government spending is out of control and about treated sewer sludge coming to Isle of Wight to be used as fertilizer.

The Isle of Wight Citizens Association met with representatives of Dominion Power and discussed the controversial possibility of farmers in the county using treated sewage sludge for fertilizer at their meeting Monday night. Sonny Stanley, the director of nuclear safety and licensing at the Surry Power Plant, told the audience assembled at the Carrollton Public Library that unless additional power plants were constructed, the state would be facing a deficit of 4,000 megawatts by the year 2017.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeks public comment on proposed changes to its licensing requirements for the storage of spent nuclear fuel, which would clarify the term limits for specific licenses for independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs) and for certificates of compliance (CoCs) for spent fuel storage casks. In a proposed rule published today in the Federal Register, the agency proposes formalizing the initial and renewal terms of a specific ISFSI license at a period of up to 40 years, instead of the current duration of up to 20 years. This change would codify a technical approach begun in 2004 with the renewal of the licenses for storage installations at the Surry and H. B. Robinson nuclear power plants. Currently, licensees must request an exemption if they desire a term of more than 20 years. Similarly, the proposed rule would allow CoC applicants to request initial and renewal terms of up to 40 years, provided they can demonstrate that all design requirements are satisfied for the requested term.