• Pete Domenici, former Senator and recent lawmaker on nuclear matters
• Dick Meserve, former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman and current president of the Carneige Institution for Science
• Ernie Moniz, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor who served President Clinton as an official at DOE
• Per Peterson, chair of the University of California at Berkeley’s nuclear engineering program
• Albert Carnesale, a nuclear engineer and nonproliferation expert who is chancellor emeritus and professor at the University of California-Los Angeles
• Alison Macfarlane, a George Mason University professor and geologist
• John Rowe, chairman and chief executive officer of Exelon Corp.
• Phil Sharp, president of Resources for the Future and former Indiana congressman
• Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute
• Chuck Hagel, former Senator
• Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO’s construction and trades department
• Vicky Bailey, a former DOE official and FERC Commissioner
• Susan Eisenhower, president of the Eisenhower Group

These experts must come up with a new strategy for handling nuclear waste without examining Yucca Mountain as a waste disposal site.  As such, the Blue Ribbon Commission will have to look to alternatives such as reprocessing and interim storage.  Reprocessing nuclear waste does not completely solve the issue of disposal, however, as reprocessing produces a high-level waste that requires disposal.  The Blue Ribbon Commission could also consider interim storage, potentially at a federal facility or community that is given financial incentives.  This may safely store spent fuel for an additional 100 years while DOE has time to contemplate another nuclear waste disposal plan.

In addition to budget requests for research, DOE will triple its loan guarantee authorization for nuclear projects in 2011, from $18.5 billion dollars to $54 billion.

The 2011 Department of Energy Budget Request on Nuclear Waste, Defense Nuclear Waste Disposal and Nuclear Waste Disposal is available at:  http://www.mbe.doe.gov/budget/11budget/Content/Volume%207.pdf

Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the NRC has adopted several rules aimed at improving security at existing nuclear power facilities. In February 2002, the NRC issued an order requiring all existing nuclear plants to develop and adopt procedures to deal with large fires and explosions, including “beyond-design-basis” aircraft impacts. In March 2007, the NRC required both existing and proposed new reactors to defend against more realistic threats. In December 2008, the NRC codified these requirements in a separate rule for all existing and proposed nuclear facilities.

The new rule expands previous rules that require new nuclear power plants to be designed under very strict requirements so that they can shut down safely after “design-basis events” such as large fires, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes, as well as unlikely equipment malfunctions. These requirements include having two redundant systems to accomplish each safety function.

Under the new rule, a design feature or functional capability of a proposed nuclear reactor that is solely designed to comply with the rule will be exempt from NRC design-basis regulations, such as regulations for redundancy. Such design features must address core cooling capability, containment integrity, spent fuel cooling capability, and spent fuel pool integrity following an airplane crash into a nuclear generating facility.

Specifically, the rule requires that the design of a proposed nuclear reactor include features that will keep the reactor core cooled in the event of an airplane crash or that the reactor containment shell will remain intact to contain any radiation released from a crack in the core. Additionally, new plant designs must show that the plant’s spent fuel cooling system or spent fuel pool would remain intact so that no radiation would be released after an airplane collision.

The NRC noted that nuclear power plant operators are not required to prevent the impact of large commercial aircraft because that is the responsibility of the federal government. However, if such an unlikely event were to occur at a new plant designed in accordance with the new rule, the plant will be better able to withstand such a crash.

The rule does not apply to existing nuclear power facilities. However, utilities seeking to build already approved projects will have to demonstrate compliance with the new rule as part of their construction and operating license.