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The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. NRC staff last week outlined several options it is considering for creating a more integrated regulatory framework, as recommended by the agency’s post-Fukushima task force. The options, discussed at a Nov. 8 public meeting...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. NRC staff told the agency’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards last week it believes that installing external containment vent filters on some reactors could be beneficial. The industry, however, said that filtering...

The NRC has issued for public comment draft interim staff guidance for U.S. nuclear energy facility operators to perform certain flooding hazard assessments in response to a request for information the agency issued in March as part of its response to the Fukushima accident. The March request calls for...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. Discussion of the cumulative effects of regulation on NRC licensees dominated a panel at last week’s NEI Licensing Forum, with the views of the industry’s commercial nuclear energy and fuel cycle sectors well represented...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. NRC Commissioner William Ostendorff told attendees at NEI’s Licensing Forum this week that the nuclear energy industry needs to communicate how the FLEX strategy would work to bolster public safety. FLEX, the industry’s...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. NEI has reiterated its position that the key to minimizing radioactive releases during an accident is to avoid core damage. In a letter to the NRC, NEI is also urging the agency to consolidate several issues it is analyzing...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. The NRC has issued for public comment draft interim staff guidance for U.S. nuclear energy facility operators to evaluate their sites’ responses to reanalyzed flooding hazards that exceed levels the plants were designed...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. The NRC has released Interim Staff Guidance on three post-Fukushima orders the agency issued in March on safety enhancements at the nation’s nuclear energy facilities. “The NRC guidance issued last week meets the intent...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. The industry has submitted for NRC endorsement revised guidance for implementing the agency’s post-Fukushima order to install additional used fuel storage pool instrumentation. The revision clarifies several points based...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. The use of nuclear energy will continue to increase globally, even though last year’s accident in Japan has curbed expansion, the International Atomic Energy Agency says. “The Fukushima Daiichi accident resulted in a slowing...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. The NRC’s plan to require licensees to evaluate the potential loss of a nuclear energy facility’s ultimate heat sink, or long-term cooling source, as part of flooding hazard re-evaluations will extend the time needed to...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. The NRC has published a report describing actions taken and planned by the agency and the nuclear energy industry to enhance safety following the Fukushima Daiichi accident. The U.S. national report was prepared in conjunction...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. NRC Commissioner George Apostolakis had questions about the nuclear energy industry’s FLEX strategy at a briefing on the progress made to implement the highest-priority recommendations of the agency’s post-Fukushima task...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. A new study from the National Academy of Sciences says that nuclear emergency preparedness drills helped an Iowa city cope with record-setting floods. The emergency drills may have saved lives, the report said. The city...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has endorsed industry guidance for developing updated seismic hazard evaluations for nuclear energy facility sites. The guidance gives licensees the tools to prepare responses to the...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. The NRC staff has outlined its plans for tackling the long-term recommendations from the Fukushima task force and its progress on high-priority items in a paper released last week. The paper also reiterates the agency’s...

Nuclear energy facilities have different designs and each filtration option, or combination of options highlighted in the graphic below, is a possible way to achieve the goal of preventing the release of potentially harmful materials in the event of an accident. After numerous other safety measures have...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. Last week’s meeting of industry and NRC post-Fukushima steering groups indicates that work is proceeding smoothly on the top priority, or Tier 1, recommendations from the agency task force that studied the accident. However...

The following news article originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. Inspections related to flood protection have begun at nuclear energy facilities based on industry guidance endorsed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in late May. These inspections, or “walkdowns,” address part of the...

The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. NEI and NRC representatives told a National Academy of Sciences panel that the industry is making steady progress in implementing lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident. The NAS is conducting a technical study of the...

The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs a clear safety imperative for drafting options for a new regulatory framework, as recommended by the agency’s post-Fukushima task force, industry said this week. The schedule for this...

The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. NEI has asked the NRC to endorse the industry’s guidance for complying with the agency order requiring that nuclear energy facilities be equipped with instruments to reliably indicate used fuel storage pool water levels in an emergency...

The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. The industry estimates it will take each nuclear plant site between 30,000 and 45,000 hours to respond to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s post-Fukushima request for information on seismic risk and other issues—more than...

The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. NEI is urging the NRC to remain focused on the high-priority recommendations from the agency’s Fukushima task force before proceeding with implementation of the lower-priority items. “Preliminary industry assessments indicate that...

Last week at the 2012 Nuclear Energy Assembly (NEA 2012), Tony Pietrangelo, the Chief Nuclear Officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, moderated a panel discussion on the industry’s response to the events at Fukushima. We’ve posted the video from the session on YouTube and embedded a copy...