Nuclear Power & Its Impacts

Can regulations for nuclear power reactors be "generic"?

Photo by Nicolas HIPPERT on Unsplash

As much as we may aspire to have energy resources with no environmental impacts there is no such thing. Even renewables have impacts on the environment from wind turbines killing birds of prey to the destruction and contamination of land and water to mine the minerals required to make lithium batteries to run electric vehicles — there is no impact-free energy resource.

Nuclear power remains the only energy resource that will result in reducing the rate of carbon emissions, by replacing some fossil fuel use. Yet, it also has impacts, predominately, the spent fuel waste. Because the accident risks are catastrophic, scrutiny over licensing can often take more than ten years.¹ Delays are strategies in hopes the companies will give up and often they do abandon the project.

Civilian use of nuclear power is regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the United States; and the international regulatory body is an independent organization called the International Atomic Energy Association.² The IAEA is authorized by the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and entered into force in 1970 then extended indefinitely in 1995. The IAEA is also affiliated with the United Nations through a kind of Memorandum of Understanding.

The mission of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is that:

“[W]e license and regulate U.S. Civilian use of radioactive materials, protecting human health and safety, promoting the nation’s common defense and security, and protecting the environment.”³

But the use of civilian nuclear energy has stalled over the years due to increasing difficulty with licensing which requires an environmental impact statement in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA is triggered any time there is a “major federal action significantly affecting the human environment,”⁴ and so environmental impact statements are to be included in every Federal agency recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.

So the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided to promulgate regulations for a generic environmental impact statement for nuclear reactors. It appears this is an approach to make the licensing process go more uniformly, consistently and accurately. So how might you go about deciding whether generic or “one size fits all” should be designed? Here is a key decision that was made in drafting these regulations:

During scoping, multiple commenters suggested that the parameters used in the generic analyses should be tied to the potential for environmental impacts rather than to an arbitrary power level. After reviewing the comments, the staff agreed that a GEIS developed using technology-neutral performance-based values and assumptions tied to environmental impacts might help streamline environmental reviews even for some larger ANRs that have a low potential for significant environmental impacts with respect to some environmental issues.⁵

These new regulations could help meet the United States commitment to tripling its nuclear power resources, that I wrote about here in September.⁶

So the parameters used are not tied to the size or power of the nuclear reactor, but rather to the environmental impacts. So environmental impacts do not correlate with power of the nuclear reactors.

So what kind of environmental parameters will be used?

So generally, the environmental issues are either category 1 or 2. Category 1 issues are ones that you find or that apply to all nuclear reactors; whereas the Category 2 issues are maybe unique to that site and so a generic analysis cannot be done for them. Remember this is technology-neutral and is just focused on the environmental impacts.

Other parameters for the Category 1, environmental impacts include a site that is 100 acres or less. They analyzed 121 environmental criteria and the parameters used include visual impacts, the size and width of transmission lines; exclusion of standard emissions from vehicles typically used on a site; effects on various water resources; effects on wildlife and habitat; waste and accidents.

Since these are typical impacts it means there is no reinventing the wheel for writing an EIS, and getting out sooner with more efficiency. This could help move licensing forward with even more accurate impact information.

Siting Nuclear Facilities affecting Indian Country

With natural resources, including oil, gas, land leases for power, etc., with some exceptions, The Dept. of Interior is the Trustee for Indian lands. That meant that U.S. DOI would “cut deals” with companies for drilling, mining, waste disposal and land use without even the Tribe’s knowledge. This led to events like the DAPL pipeline project that crossed a sacred lake on the Lakota reservation in South Dakota with no input from the Tribal governments. Pres. Biden through Executive Order asked Departments and Agencies to develop “consultation” policies with Tribal governments for projects and actions taken by their respective agencies. Over a two year period this process was established, and Tribes are now part of the notice and comment process of siting. This participation is now more like that of states and cities as it should be, as sovereign governments within the United States.

The recent rulemaking process of notice and comment, triggered the requirement to consult with Tribes on the new regulations for generic regulations, and the NRC notes that:

“The NRC Recognizes the federal trust relationship with and will uphold its trust responsibility to Indian Tribes”⁷

This statement is an important legal distinction that draws from centuries of U.S. Supreme Court opinions on the relationship between the federal government and Indian Tribes. The consultation process becomes more meaningful and substantive with this acknowledged legal obligation.

In the past, nuclear waste disposal might be sent to the least powerless community, and in many cases this took advantage of the lack of consultation with Native Nations and required only dealmaking with the federal government through the U.S. Department of Interior. Despite the trust relationship, it was easily ignored where there was little to no oversight for these decisions, or even acknowledgment of this legal obligation.

If there is an environmental justice issue in the process which could mean impacting heritage protected sites, for example, the licensing process goes to a Category 2 status meaning generic criteria does not apply for that criteria and possibly for the entire project.⁸

This current rulemaking is seeking the input of Indian Tribes through several sessions for Native Nations’ governments. This is a step in the right direction and has been long in coming. Ensuring that the Environmental Impact Process and the new generic regulations address considerations like siting decisions and the process of environmental review at least has a chance of being shaped with Indian Country participating.

Final thoughts. . .

The difficulty of siting new nuclear power generators may be made more uniform and streamlined by the proposed regulations for generic environmental impact statements,⁹ proposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). If this makes energy more affordable, and less damaging to the environment, that should be something we could live with.

1. https://nuclear.duke-energy.com/2012/01/17/nrc-new-nuclear-licensing-process#:~:text=The%20licensing%20process%20%E2%80%93%20something%20that,for%20new%20nuclear%20power%20facilities.

2. https://www.iaea.org/

3. https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc.html

4. 102(2)(C) of NEPA.

5. Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Licensing New Nuclear Reactors, Draft Report for Comment (September 2024) https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2417/ML24176A220.pdf

6.

7. Tribal Policy, NRC at https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/state-tribal/tps.html

8. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2417/ML24176A220.pdf

9. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2417/ML24176A220.pdf