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November 28, 2011
NRDC Files Petitions to Intervene in the Limerick Nuclear Plant Operating License Renewal Application, Citing Obsolete Accident Mitigation Study
WASHINGTON - November 28 - Exelon Generation, the owner of the Limerick nuclear power plant outside of Philadelphia, is seeking federal re-licensing of its plant without updating a 1980s-era accident mitigation study, due to an inappropriate exemption received from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), according to petitions filed last week by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“The tragedy in Japan has resulted in a hard look at the safety of nuclear plants worldwide and is providing critical new information that can help prevent future disasters. We need to learn from that failure, not ignore it,” said Christopher Paine, director of the nuclear program at NRDC. “The Limerick nuclear power plant’s safety analysis for mitigating unlikely but severe accidents is decades out-of-date. Re-licensing it now without a fresh analysis of potential safety upgrades would be a reckless decision, especially given that the current operating licenses for these twin units don’t expire until 2024 and 2029. There is ample time to take a fresh look at safety improvements.”
The NRDC petitions contend that Exelon’s license renewal application is deficient because it relies on outdated and insufficient safety and risk information and fails to fully consider the alternatives to re-licensing Limerick as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
All U.S. nuclear plants are required to conduct a critical safety review known as a Severe Accident Mitigation Alternatives, or “SAMA,” analysis to determine potentially cost-beneficial operational safety upgrades at nuclear plants. The last analysis for Limerick, completed in 1989, relied upon population data from 1980 and therefore didn’t take into account evacuation planning and the health risk from radiation exposure for up to 1.4 million additional people now living downwind in the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Newark metropolitan area.
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