WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been on a hiring spree in anticipation of applications for new nuclear reactors, reactor permit renewals and the nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain.
"For at least the past year we've been looking to seriously ramp up the agency's research personnel," said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell.
That includes more than 300 hires over the past year, a trend expected to continue for the next few years. This has put the agency in a space crunch, too, converting conference rooms in its Rockville, Md., headquarters into cubicles. "Regional offices are tight on space" as well, Burnell said.
While active reactors head into the twilight years of their original permit and begin applying for renewal, and the NRC braces itself for the beast of a job that is regulating the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site, "a large percentage" of the new staff is dedicated to new reactor applications, Burnell said.
Burnell said there are 13 prospective applicants totaling "19 possible applications, based on companies that have come to us so far and laid out specific plans," which he estimates to be about 27 new reactors. He expects the first new reactor application by late next year.
Ron Hagen, a nuclear energy analyst with the U.S. Energy Department's data arm, the Energy Information Administration, says he thinks there may be even more potential new nuclear sites than the NRC is letting on, and talk from within the industry points to increased chances at the first approval of nuclear power plant since 1978.
"What you're seeing is a gradual warming up to the idea," said Hagen, referring to companies getting in line for various supplies necessary to begin the building process, partly fueled by tax incentives in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
The World Nuclear Association, in a recent review of U.S. nuclear industry, expects new reactor construction by 2010, in operation by 2014, largely because of "regulatory initiatives," including Early Site Permit and Combined Construction-Operation Licensing that are partially funded by the Energy Department.
Nearly 789 billion kilowatt hours of electricity was generated by U.S. nuclear power in 2004, the most ever for the country and the fifth record set since 1998 despite no new nuclear plants coming on line since 1996.
Alan Beamon, director of EIA's coal and electrical power forecasting division, said a now nearly year-old long-term forecast predicts by 2030 U.S. nuclear capacity will increase by 9,000 megawatts -- 3,000 mw in upgrades to existing plants and 6,000 mw in new plants.
He said that estimate may be low now, after the full effects of recent energy legislation are known, including Internal Revenue Service rulings on the extent the tax breaks can be applied.
"It looks to us like the incentives in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 should be large enough to stimulate new nuclear construction," Beamon said, adding one hurdle will be the anti-nuclear groups who will surely contest the projects.
Criticism of the industry aside, it has been a steadily efficient source of energy, Beamon said.
"Nuclear power plants over the last decade, 20 years or so, have dramatically improved their performance and their output," up from 66 a percent capacity factor in 1990 to 90 percent now.
For the new plants, "the issue is then whether they can build those new units, and build them at a cost that makes further units attractive and whether they can overcome waste disposal concerns," he said.
The latter is the ongoing debacle that is the Energy Department's determination to open up a geological reservoir in Nevada's Yucca Mountain to store spent nuclear fuel. Its latest estimate is to have an application into the NRC by 2008 and open its doors by 2017, but doubts on the tight timeframe linger, spurred by history -- Yucca Mountain was supposed to open by 1998.
The NRC has opened an office in nearby Las Vegas, where Burnell says a full-time, devoted staff awaits the application. In the meantime it can be used for other regulatory work.
And there are seven nuclear plant license renewal applications being reviewed by NRC now, and 22 letters of intent to renew have been issued.
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