ML18058B259
| ML18058B259 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Palisades  |
| Issue date: | 12/08/1992 |
| From: | Roe J Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | Kowalski C AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| Shared Package | |
| ML18058B261 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9212140105 | |
| Download: ML18058B259 (1) | |
Text
t UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D. C. 20555
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Mr. Charlie Kowalski 602 E. Clark, Apt. 35 Champaign, Illinois 61820
Dear Mr. Kowalski:
December 8, 1992 I am responding to your letter dated November 19, 1992, in which you expressed concerns and opposition to the planned dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuel at the Palisades plant.
By its operating license, Palisades is already authorized to possess and store spent fuel-at the plant site. Currently the spent fuel is stored in a water-filled pool inside the plant. Storage space inside this pool has been exhausted.
As an interim measure to regain storage capacity, Palisades decided to transfer some of the oldest spent fuel presently in the spent fuel pool into a dry cask storage facility located adjacent to the plant.
Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 72, Subpart K, which became effective in August 1990, allows Consumers Power Company to store spent fuel in a cask fabricated under a certificate of compliance issued to the cask manufacturer.
The rulemaking activity, currently in progress, adds the cask which Palisades wants to use to the list of approved spent fuel storage casks that power reactor licensees may use under a general license. Notice of the current rulemaking was published on June 26, 1992, and requested public comments. -The public comment period expired on September 9, 1992.
No site specific approval is required to store spent fuel in an approved cask.
The potential environmental impacts related to previously approved dry casks were analyzed by the NRC in the associated environmental assessment, as well as in previous NRC rulemakings addressing Part 72, and in the Commission's waste confidence decisions in 1984 and 1989.
In the 1984 decision, the Commission concluded there was reasonable assurance that spent fuel can be safely stored at reactor sites without significant environmental impacts for at least 30 years beyond expiration of NRC reactor operating licenses.
The Commission amended its environmental regulations not to require further discussions of such impacts for storage of spent fuel in reactor storage pools or dry cask storage facilities. The 1989 decision reaffirmed prior Commission conclusions on the absence of significant environmental impacts.
Dry cask storage is intended as a temporary measure, licensed for a period of 20 years, until a more permanent storage facility becomes available.
The casks can only be used to store fuel originating at Palisades under specific restrictions and conditions stated in the certificate of compliance.
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