At a meeting Friday, officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expressed tentative support for an industry-proposed strategy to improve emergency preparedness at nuclear plants following the Fukushima Daiichi crisis in Japan.
Last month the Nuclear Energy Institute submitted an approach to meeting proposed plant safety enhancements called FLEX that uses pre-staged backup equipment and supplies supplemented by further resources off-site. The NEI notes the enhancements could be put in place more quickly than plant modifications requiring a lengthy regulatory approval process.
At a meeting at NRC headquarters Friday, Bloomberg quoted agency deputy director Martin Virgilio as saying the NEI’s approach represented an acceptable methodology and could help mitigate damage from unexpected disasters. In a blog post Wednesday, an agency spokesman wrote, “The NRC staff believes this approach is a reasonable starting point, although more work is needed on defining these strategies. We also must ensure the NRC can inspect how plants put the strategies in place and that we can hold plants accountable for keeping those strategies ready and available.”
More public meetings are scheduled for this week. The commission is expected to take up the deliberations and begin making decisions on the Fukushima recommendations in February and March.