The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the development of new emergency regulations for small modular reactors, which are generally defined as 300 MWe or smaller, which represents a radical departure from the 1,000 MWe reactors currently in use in the country.
NRC commissioners voted 4-0 to give their staff nine months to come up with emergency procedures for the smaller reactors. It is expected that the new guidance will include a smaller area than the current regulations, which divide emergencies into two zones covering 10-mile and 50-mile distances from operating nuclear power plants.
In a statement, the Nuclear Energy Institute, which reacted positively to the SMR emergency preparedness initiative, said that for smaller reactors “these (safety) zones could be considerably smaller because their smaller reactor cores and simplified designs are expected to reduce the risk of off-site consequences of a potential accident.
"Any releases of radioactivity to the environment would be much smaller and slower for SMRs, providing more time for mitigation,” the NEI said.
The NEI called the NRC's initiative “timely, given the progress small reactor vendors and prospective customers are making to submit licensing documents to the NRC."
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has announced plans to build one or more small nuclear reactors at the Clinch River site. The NRC is also looking at advanced reactor designs in development by NuScale SMR, B&W mPower, Hotec SMR-160 and Westinghouse SMR.
NuScale Power's design certification application is expected in the second half of 2016. Babcock and Wilcox has yet to determine a date for its pre-application, having announced in April 2014 that it would focus on mPower technology for its SMR design. Holtec SMR, LLC, is expected to submit a design certification application in the fourth quarter of 2016. Westinghouse SMR has yet to announce a certification application schedule, according to the NRC Web site.