ML25198A239
| ML25198A239 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 07/22/2025 |
| From: | Ballard B NRC/NRR/DORL/LPL3 |
| To: | |
| Ballard B, NRR/DORL/LPL3 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML25198A231 | List: |
| References | |
| EPID L-2025-LRM-0018 | |
| Download: ML25198A239 (1) | |
Text
July 22, 2025 LICENSEE:
CONSTELLATION ENERGY GENERATION, LLC FACILITIES: CHRISTOPHER M. CRANE CLEAN ENERGY CENTER
SUBJECT:
SUMMARY
OF JUNE 2, 2025, PUBLIC MEETING WITH CONSTELLATION ENERGY GENERATION, LLC, REGARDING A PLANNED LICENSE AMENDMENT REQUEST TO ALLOW RECEIPT OF NEW FUEL AT THE SITE (EPID L-2025-LRM-0018)
On June 2, 2025, a hybrid public meeting was held via webinar between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and representatives of Constellation Energy Generation, LLC (Constellation, the licensee). The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a proposed license amendment request to revise the license for the Christopher M. Crane Clean Energy Center (CCEC) to allow receipt of new fuel at the site in support of potential restart. The meeting notice and agenda, dated May 19, 2025, are available in the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML25148A402. A list of attendees is provided as an enclosure. The licensees slide presentation is available at ML25148A129.
The licensee began the presentation with introductions, purpose and goals for the meeting, and background information such as the operational history of the unit, history of the license, status of the license with respect possession of special nuclear material, and current security posture to protect special nuclear material. The licensee then discussed their strategy to allow receipt of new fuel at the site by submitting a license amendment request (LAR) to revise existing license condition 2.b.2, which as currently written only allows for possession of previously used reactor fuel and sealed neutron sources previously used for reactor startup, to allow receipt and possession of reactor fuel (new and previously used) and sealed neutron sources (new and previously used). The LAR would also restore technical specification (TS) 5.4.1, New Fuel Storage, to the language reflected in the last approved version of the Operating TS, with minor administrative changes that do not change the requirements of the TS. The TS 5.4.1 was removed by amendment no. 297, which revised the license and TS to permanently defueled TS.
Constellation stated the regulatory basis and justification for the request as Section 50.68, Criticality Requirements, of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR), 10 CFR 73.67, Security requirements for Special Nuclear Material, 10 CFR 50.47, Emergency Plans, and Appendix E to 10 CFR Part 50, Emergency Planning and Preparedness for Production and Utilization Facilities, and provided a brief discussion on how they will meet the requirements under their Criticality Analysis of Record, their Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation Only Emergency Plan, and their Material Protection Plan for Special Nuclear Material. In addition, Constellation discussed their proposed No Significant Hazards Determination for the request.
Constellation closed the presentation with a discussion of the proposed schedule for LAR. The NRC staff asked the licensee several questions throughout the presentation. Specifically, the NRC staff asked about the condition of the fuel racks, especially the spent fuel pool (SFP) neutron absorbing materials and whether the monitoring programs remained applicable since the SFP had been drained as it is not typical to drain and refill the pool. Additionally, the staff asked if the licensee planned to restore TS 5.4.2, Spent Fuel Storage, which contains loading curves for the SFPs. Constellation stated that they planned to store all fuel assemblies in region 1 of the A SFP, so the TS 5.4.2 would not be necessary (only applicable to region II of A SFP and B SFP), and would address this in their application. The NRC staff also asked about the type of new fuel. Constellation stated that there would be no changes to the fuel from the fuel used prior to the permanent shutdown in 2019. The NRC staff requested that Constellation detail differences, if any, no matter how minor, in the application. The staff also asked about the storage capacity of the regions of the SFPs, as well as the new fuel storage vault, and how many fuel assemblies are needed to load the core. Constellation provided estimates for the capacities of each region and vault and stated that 177 assemblies are required to load the core, and stated that they intended to store all fuel assemblies in region 1 of the SFP. Finally, the NRC staff asked about restoration of support systems for the SFP (SFP cooling, fuel handling, etc.) to support receiving new fuel. Constellation stated that they did not intend to include a discussion of support systems in their submittal but acknowledged all systems would have to be restored before the amendment, if approved, as implemented. The NRC staff maintained that restoration of support systems was essential.
Members of the public were in attendance and had comments for the NRC staff. There were some comments in favor of the licensee moving forward with the project for reasons related to providing local jobs, tax revenue, and a clean energy source. Others had comments that were generally against the licensee moving forward with the project related to potential for tritium release, use of the sites generated power for a specific companys data centers, and overall distrust for nuclear power. Others were against the project but had questions/comments more specific to the planned request to receive new fuel at the site, such as potential for criticality of the SFP with new fuel, how the site will perform radiation monitoring, if the new fuel casks are the same as other casks, and if the site is required to be able to perform full core offload.
No Public Meeting Feedback Forms were received.
Please direct any inquiries to me at 301-415-0680, or via email at Brent.Ballard@nrc.gov.
/RA/
Brent T. Ballard, Project Manager Plant Licensing Branch 3 Division of Operating Reactor Licensing Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Docket No. 50-289
Enclosure:
List of Attendees cc: Listserv
Enclosure LIST OF ATTENDEES JUNE 2, 2025, MEETING WITH CONSTELLATION ENERGY GENERATION, LLC REGARDING A PLANNED LICENSE AMENDMENT REQUEST TO ALLOW RECEIPT OF NEW FUEL AT THE SITE (EPID L-2025-LRM-0018)
NRC
Participants:
Jamie Pelton, Acting Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR), Division of Operating Reactor Licensing (DORL)
Russell Felts, Director, NRR, Division of Reactor Oversight (DRO)
John McKirgan, Director, Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response (NSIR), Division of Physical and Cyber Security Policy (DPCP)
Hal Pitman, Director, Office of Public Affairs (OPA)
Ray McKinley, Deputy Director, Region I, Division of Operating Reactor Safety (DORS)
Tony Bowers, Deputy Director, NSIR, Division of Security Operations (DSO)
Shakur Walker, Deputy Director, NSIR, DPCP Ilka Berrios, Acting Branch Chief, NRR/DORL/Plant Licensing Branch 3 (LPL3)
Desiree Davis, Branch Chief, NSIR/DSO/Security Oversight & Support Branch (SOSB)
Shivani Mehta, Branch Chief, NRR/Division of Safety Systems (DSS)/Technical Specifications Branch (STSB)
Scott Krepel, Branch Chief, NRR/DSS/Nuclear Methods and Fuels Branch (SFNB)
Amanda Marshall, Branch Chief, NSIR/DPCP/Reactor Physical Protection Branch (RPPB)
Jessie Quichocho, Branch Chief, NSIR/Division of Preparedness and Response (DPR)/Reactor Licensing Branch (RLB)
Erin Carfang, Branch Chief, Region 1/DORS/Engineering Branch 1 (EB1)
Justin Poole, Project Manager, NRR/DORL/LPL3 Brent Ballard, Project Manager, NRR/DORL/LPL3 Daniel King, Technical Assistant, NRR/DORL Kent Wood, Senior Nuclear Engineer, NRR/DSS/SFNB Brandon Wise, Reactor Systems Engineer, NRR/DSS/SFNB Jack Vande Polder, Reactor Systems Engineer, NRR/DSS/SFNB Kevin Heller, Nuclear Engineer, NRR/DSS/SFNB Steve Smith, Senior Safety and Plant Systems Engineer, NRR/DSS/STSB Jeffrey Herrera, Senior Emergency Preparedness Specialist, NSIR/DPR/RLB Jeff Bream, Senior Security Risk Analyst, NSIR/DSO/SOSB Jeremiah Rey, Security Specialist, NSIR/DSO/SOSB Steve Sarver, Security Specialist, NSIR/DPCP/ RPPB Travis Leach, Security Specialist, NSIR/DPCP/ RPPB Niklas Floyd, Senior Reactor Inspector, Region I/DORS/EB1 Mike Smith, Reactor Engineer, Region I/DORS/EB1 April Nguyen, Team Leader, Region III/Palisades Restart Team Courtney St. Peters, Senior Project Engineer, Region III/Palisades Restart Team Jeremy Wachutka, Senior Attorney, Office of the Geneal Counsel (OGC)
Brett Klukan, Regional Counsel, Region 1/Office of the Regional Administrator Scott Burnell, Public Affairs Officer, OPA Mitch Hoskins, Congressional Affairs Officer, Office of Congressional Affairs Christopher Tan, Management Analyst, Office of the Inspector General Liam ODonoghue, General Engineer, Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO)/Human Resources Learning and Development (HRLD)/Nuclear Regulator Apprenticeship Network Branch (NRANB)
Grace Pennington, General Engineer, OCHOC/HRLD/NRANB Jennifer Beaton, General Engineer, OCHOC/HRLD/NRANB Jacob Davis, General Engineer, OCHOC/HRLD/NRANB Constellation Energy Generation, LLC:
Craig Smith, Senior Manager Regulatory Assurance Dennis Moore, Senior Manager, Corporate Licensing James Barstow, Director, Corporate Licensing Daniel Kenny, Senior Manager, Security, Crane Clean Energy Center Christian Williams, Principal Regulatory Engineer, Corporate Licensing Bradley Kreifels, Director, OR EP and Security, Crane Clean Energy Center Hannah Pell, Regulatory Specialist, Crane Clean Energy Center Jason Zorn, Associate General Council Chirstopher Demetriou, Manager Corporate Nuclear Fuels Rory Flynn, Manager, Corporate Emergency Preparedness Tao He, Senior Staff Fuels Engineer, Corporate Nuclear Fuels John Massari, Senior Manager, Corporate Nuclear Fuels Chukai Yin, Senior Staff Fuels Engineer, Corporate Nuclear Fuels Carlos Flores, Corporate Security John Koons David Marcheskie Mark Rodgers Daniel Sells Allison Stalker Public:
Steve Aaron Jana Bergman Vince Cwietniewicz James Davis Ryan Lighty Cara Canale Thomas Byrne Kacey Shriner Jack Morrissey Michael Keegan Eric Epstein Amanda Van Houten Jeff Gromatzky Sarah Rosa Justin Wheat Karly Matthews Lee Blackburn Tyler Linnebur Jennifer Meek Charles Thompson Carlyn Greene Henry Kohn Madison Schroder Matteo Riordan Matthew Shields Kyle Maguire Stacy Burgess Heather Hoff 130XXXXXX44 171XXXXXX15 171XXXXXX86 176XXXXXX99 133XXXXXX54
Package: ML25198A231 Meeting Slides: ML25148A129 Meeting Notice: ML25148A402 Meeting Summary: ML25198A239
- via eConcurrence NRC-001 OFFICE NRR/DORL/LPL3/PM* NRR/DORL/LPL3/LA* NRR/DORL/LPL3/BC* NRR/DORL/LPL3/PM*
NAME BBallard SLent IBerrios BBallard DATE 7/16/2025 7/18/2025 7/21/2025 7/22/2025