The U.S. Senate last week (Dec. 12) confirmed the Biden administration’s choice of Matthew Marzano to fill a vacant seat on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, by a 50-45 partisan vote. Outgoing Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was the only Democrat voting no. No Republicans supported the nomination.
Marzano, the first NRC member with hands-on nuclear plant operating experience in many years, fills an existing five-year seat that expires June 30, 2028. The appointment ends a partisan stalemate since 2023, with two Democrats, including Chairman Christopher Hanson, and two Republicans. When he comes into office in January, Donald Trump will be able to name the NRC chairman. The Democrats will be in the majority until 2027.
Marzano has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nuclear engineering from the University of Florida. He worked for what was then SCANA Corp. at the failed V.C. Summer nuclear construction project in South Carolina. He then went to work for Constellation’s Braidwood plant near Chicago, when he went through the rigorous 18-month training program to become a senior reactor operator at the plant.
He was the American Nuclear Society’s 2022 Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow. Marzano has been on the committee staff for two years. He worked on the environment committee’s passage of the ADVANCE Act, designed to ready the NRC for a new series of licensing reviews for advanced reactors.
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The NRC on Dec. 11 approved a final proposed rule on how the commission will regulate as-yet-unknown fusion reactors, based on a decision made in 2023 on how to regulate a technology that does not exist. The basis of the NRC’s rule – approved on a notational vote, not at a public meeting – treats potential fusion safety issues the same as those of particle accelerators, based on their tritium emissions, not on the safety issues that might be presented by real fusion machines.
The proposed rule, which must be published for comment in the Federal Register, drew a blistering criticism from two unidentified NRC staffers who worked on the proposed rule. They essentially argue that the commission is putting a regulatory cart ahead of an unknown nuclear horse that is far different than the relatively benign particle accelerators.
The dissenter write, “Given that some fusion developers have future designs of more than 500 MW (electric) the potential size of a fusion machine facility would be significantly larger than existing commercial accelerators commonly used for generating small quantities of byproduct materials that have been principally licensed by Agreement States. Such a fusion machine facility could require large quantities of cooling water if applying a steam-based electrical generation system, due to operating at large thermal energy levels (e.g., the ARC tokamak conceptual design has a thermal efficiency of 40 percent).”
The proposed rule also ignores the possible waste stream from fusion reactors, including the difficulties of treating tritium and the irradiation of reactor equipment caused by neutron bombardment, the objection notes. The two staffers point to a “significant effluent waste stream because tritium is difficult to contain, and even a small leakage fraction is significant when large quantities of tritium are being produced and processed. The large quantity of tritium is also a source term of a potential accident release.” Also, “Activation of structural materials is another source of radioactive waste materials that will be produced in larger amounts than in regulated accelerator facilities. In the case of DT fusion fuel, the materials from fusion machines can also be tritiated through diffusion of the tritium into the structural materials.”
Nuclear physicist Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists commented, “The NRC commissioners should pay serious attention to the safety concerns raised by these expert staff members issued in their alternative view instead of simply taking the word of fusion industry lobbyists that their reactors will be benign.”
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The NRC is moving forward on a plan to allow uranium enrichment firm Urenco USA to increase its enrichment levels of Uranium-235 to 10% (labeled LEU+) from the current limit of 5.5% (LEU). Urenco’s Eunice, New Mexico plant is the only commercial uranium enrichment facility in the U.S.
“The amendment, if granted, would not allow the shipment or transportation of LEU+ product offsite.”
The regulatory agency has given the enrichment increase an environmental green light under the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act. In a Dec.10 Federal Register notice, the NRC said its environmental analysis produced a “Finding of No Significant Impact,” commonly known as a FONSI, for the increased enrichment level.
The Federal Register notice says, “Under the proposed action, UUSA would use the existing facilities and equipment. There would be no construction of new facilities or modifications to existing buildings. The amendment, if granted, would not allow the shipment or transportation of LEU+ product offsite. The proposed action is limited only to the processes, systems and components needed to produce, handle and store LEU+ at the UUSA site.”
The next step would be for the NRC to approve offsite use of the LEU+. According to World Nuclear News, that is planned for “late Spring 2025.”
–Kennedy Maize