The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Wednesday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had resumed issuing 20-year nuclear plant license renewals just as nine environment groups and the National Resources Defense Council filed lawsuits in the D.C. Court of Appeals challenging the agency on its compliance with a 2012 mandate that derailed renewals for the past two years.
On Oct. 20, the NRC renewed the operating licenses for Limerick Generating Station Units 1 and 2 to allow operations through 2044 and 2049, respectively.
With those renewals, the NRC has granted operations extensions for 74 of 100 nuclear power plants currently operating in the United States, the EIA said.
The extensions allow for a plant to stay in production for a total of 60 years. To date, no plants have been awarded a second 20-year extension.
Earlier this week, attorney generals from New York, Vermont and Connecticut filed suits challenging the NRC on its compliance with the 2012 court order that forced the NRC to reassess its policy on environmental impact assessments for spent reactor fuel in light of the 2011 decision not to proceed with development of a federal repository for spent fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
On Wednesday, nine other groups and the NRDC filed separate lawsuits on similar grounds, claiming the Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel rule the NRC announced in September also did not meet federal standards for assessing health and environmental concerns involving spent fuel storage at individual power plants.
NRC is currently reviewing applications for 20-year operating extensions for 17 reactors. In addition, the agency expects seven other plants to submit applications for license renewals between 2015 and 2018, EIA said.