Related Research Articles
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the NRC began operations on January 19, 1975, as one of two successor agencies to the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Its functions include overseeing reactor safety and security, administering reactor licensing and renewal, licensing radioactive materials, radionuclide safety, and managing the storage, security, recycling, and disposal of spent fuel.
Low-level waste (LLW) or Low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) is nuclear waste that does not fit into the categorical definitions for intermediate-level waste (ILW), high-level waste (HLW), spent nuclear fuel (SNF), transuranic waste (TRU), or certain byproduct materials known as 11e(2) wastes, such as uranium mill tailings. In essence, it is a definition by exclusion, and LLW is that category of radioactive wastes that do not fit into the other categories. If LLW is mixed with hazardous wastes as classified by RCRA, then it has a special status as mixed low-level waste (MLLW) and must satisfy treatment, storage, and disposal regulations both as LLW and as hazardous waste. While the bulk of LLW is not highly radioactive, the definition of LLW does not include references to its activity, and some LLW may be quite radioactive, as in the case of radioactive sources used in industry and medicine.
The H. B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, also known as Robinson Nuclear Plant, is a nuclear power plant located near Hartsville, South Carolina. The plant consists of one Westinghouse 759 MW pressurized water reactor. The site once included a coal-fired unit that generated 174 MW and a combustion turbine unit that generated 15 MW.
The Byron Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located in Ogle County, Illinois, 2 miles (3.2 km) east of the Rock River. The reactor buildings were constructed by Commonwealth Edison and house two Westinghouse Four-Loop pressurized water reactors, Unit 1 and Unit 2, which began operation in September 1985 and August 1987 respectively. The plant is owned and operated by Constellation Energy.
The Export Administration Regulations (EAR) are a set of United States export guidelines and prohibitions. They are administered by the Bureau of Industry and Security which regulates the export restrictions of sensitive goods. The EAR apply to scenarios where something is exported from the US, re-exported from a foreign country, or transferred from one person to another in a foreign country. The EAR apply to physical objects as well as intellectual property such as software.
In the United States, nuclear power is provided by 92 commercial reactors with a net capacity of 94.7 gigawatts (GW), with 61 pressurized water reactors and 31 boiling water reactors. In 2019, they produced a total of 809.41 terawatt-hours of electricity, which accounted for 20% of the nation's total electric energy generation. In 2018, nuclear comprised nearly 50 percent of US emission-free energy generation.
A reactor operator is an individual at a nuclear power plant who is responsible for directly controlling a nuclear reactor from a control panel and is the only individual at a nuclear power plant who can directly alter significant amounts of reactor reactivity. The reactor operator occupies a position of great responsibility that may require him or her to start up a nuclear reactor, shut down a nuclear reactor, monitor reactor parameters, or respond to a casualty of the nuclear reactor.
Nuclear history of the United States describes the history of nuclear affairs in the United States whether civilian or military.
Nuclear safety in the United States is governed by federal regulations issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC regulates all nuclear plants and materials in the United States except for nuclear plants and materials controlled by the U.S. government, as well those powering naval vessels.
The Combined Construction and Operating License replaced the previous Draft Regulatory Guide 1145 as the licensing process for new nuclear power plants in the United States. It is a part of a newer "streamlined" process that encourages standard plant designs, and prevents delays in operation that contributed to the mothballing of many plants since the 1980s. "A combined license authorizes construction and conditional operation of a nuclear power plant. The application for a combined license must contain essentially the same information required in an application for an operating license issued under 10 CFR Part 50, including financial and antitrust information and an assessment of the need for power. The application must also describe the inspections, tests, analyses, and acceptance criteria (ITAAC) that are necessary to ensure that the plant has been properly constructed and will operate safely."
The McGuire Nuclear Station is a nuclear power plant located about 17 miles (27 km) northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, on the state's largest lake, Lake Norman. It is a 32,500-acre (13,200 ha) lake created in 1963 by Duke Power for the Cowans Ford Hydroelectric Station. The McGuire units use the lake's water for cooling.
The Levy County Nuclear Power Plant was a proposed nuclear power plant in Levy County, Florida. Progress Energy Florida originally estimated that the reactors would cost $5 billion and would commence operation in 2016. It later became clear that the Levy County reactors would not have started operation until at least 2026. Since Progress filed its application for the new plant in 2008 demand for electricity had been growing very slowly, and natural gas prices were extremely low at the time. The utility estimated that the reactors would cost between $17 billion and $22 billion, not counting financing charges and cost overruns. According to economist Mark Cooper, opposition to the project has mounted, threatening a rerun of the 1970s and 1980s, when the majority of nuclear construction plans were canceled or abandoned.
George Galatis is a senior nuclear engineer and whistleblower who reported safety problems at the Millstone 1 Nuclear Power Plant, relating to reactor refueling procedures, in 1996. The unsafe procedures meant that spent fuel rod pools at Unit 1 had the potential to boil, possibly releasing radioactive steam throughout the plant. Galatis was the subject of a Time magazine cover story on March 4, 1996. Millstone 1 was permanently closed in July 1998.
In Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation & Development Commission, 461 U.S. 190 (1983), the United States Supreme Court held that a state statute regulating economic aspects of nuclear generating plants was not preempted by the federal Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The case provides a framework that has guided other cases involving preemption of federal authority.
The United States Government Accountability Office reported more than 150 incidents from 2001 to 2006 of nuclear plants not performing within acceptable safety guidelines. According to a 2010 survey of energy accidents, there have been at least 56 accidents at nuclear reactors in the United States. The most serious of these was the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States since 1979. Relatively few accidents have involved fatalities.
Radioactive waste is generated from the nuclear weapons program, commercial nuclear power, medical applications, and corporate and university-based research programs. Some of the materials LLW consists of are: "gloves and other protective clothing, glass and plastic laboratory supplies, machine parts and tools, and disposable medical items that have come in contact with radioactive materials". Waste is generally categorized as high level waste (HLW) and low-level waste (LLW). LLW contains materials such as irradiated tools, lab clothing, ion exchanger resins, animal carcasses, and trash from defense, commercial nuclear power, medical, and research activities. These materials usually have radioactivity that have short half lives—from ranges of multiple days to several hundred years. In 1990, 1.1 million cubic feet of LLW was produced. Currently, U.S. reactors generate about 40,000 cubic meters of low-level radioactive waste per year, including contaminated components and materials resulting from reactor decommissioning.
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) is a provider of advanced reactors and nuclear services. It is headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States. Established in June 2007, GEH is a nuclear alliance created by General Electric and Hitachi. In Japan, the alliance is Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy. In November 2015, Jay Wileman was appointed CEO.
The nuclear energy policy of the United States began in 1954 and continued with the ongoing building of nuclear power plants, the enactment of numerous pieces of legislation such as the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, and the implementation of countless policies which have guided the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy in the regulation and growth of nuclear energy companies. This includes, but is not limited to, regulations of nuclear facilities, waste storage, decommissioning of weapons-grade materials, uranium mining, and funding for nuclear companies, along with an increase in power plant building. Both legislation and bureaucratic regulations of nuclear energy in the United States have been shaped by scientific research, private industries' wishes, and public opinion, which has shifted over time and as a result of different nuclear disasters.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel (ASLBP) is an independent adjudicatory division of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, authorized under the Atomic Energy Act. The ASLBP consists of administrative judges that differ from other administrative law judges in other Federal agencies, most notably that Licensing Boards have technical judges who are experts in their relative field of study. Licensing Boards hear claims by petitioners who seek to intervene in a licensing action before the NRC. The ASLBP's jurisdiction is limited to the scope of the licensing action before the NRC, commonly outlined in the Federal Register when a licensing action is published to give notice of the pending action and calls for petitions. Licensing Boards commonly hear matters arising under the Atomic Energy Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, and the NRC's regulations in Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations. Licensing Boards hear licensing matters concerning the licensing matters of nuclear power plants, in situ leach uranium mining, spent fuel storage facilities, and enforcement matters of individuals who hold an NRC-issued license.
U.S. non-military nuclear material is regulated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which uses the concept of defense in depth when protecting the health and safety of the public from the hazards associated with nuclear materials. The NRC defines defense in depth as creating multiple independent and redundant layers of protection and response to failures, accidents, or fires in power plants. For example, defense in depth means that if one fire suppression system fails, there will be another to back it up. The idea is that no single layer, no matter how robust, is exclusively relied upon; access controls, physical barriers, redundant and diverse key safety functions, and emergency response measures are used. Defense in depth is designed to compensate for potential human and mechanical failures, which are assumed to be unavoidable.
References
- ↑ "Federal Register :: Request Access". www.ecfr.gov. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ↑ "NRC Regulations Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations". NRC Web. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  | This article relating to law in the United States or its constituent jurisdictions is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |