– Edited By Tom Lamar –
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published its final Safety Evaluation Report (SER) for the license application by Shaw AREVA MOX Services, LLC, to possess and use radioactive material at the Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C.
The NRC issued a Construction Authorization for the facility in March 2005, and construction is under way. The facility is part of an agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation to dismantle thousands of Cold War-era nuclear weapons by using the plutonium from warheads to manufacture fuel for civilian nuclear power reactors. The facility would combine plutonium and uranium oxides to make the mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel. It is the only MOX fuel fabrication facility being built in the United States.
A license will be issued if the NRC verifies the applicant has properly constructed principal structures, systems and components. That stage is expected to be several years away.
The report contains the staff’s conclusion that the applicant’s descriptions, specifications, commitments and analyses provide an adequate basis for safety and safeguards of facility operations and that operation of the facility would not pose an undue risk to worker and public health and safety.
The SER was reviewed by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards and approved for publication in September 2010.
The SER reviews the applicants financial qualifications, plans for protection of classified matter, organization and administration, integrated safety analysis, nuclear criticality safety, fire protection, chemical safety, radiation safety, environmental protection and plant systems.
The redacted SER for the MOX facility will be published as a NUREG document, and can presently be found in the NRC’s online ADAMS database.
Source NRC