An Uncertain Phase for Nuclear Power Licenses

By MATTHEW L. WALD

Associated PressThe bottom of the new Unit 3 reactor under construction earlier this year at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Waynesboro, Ga. 

In a rare action, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acceded to a petition filed by anti-nuclear groups that it halt some licensing activities until the agency can sort out its troubled policy on nuclear waste. The groups, two dozen of them, are sounding triumphant, as if they have brought the industry to its knees.

But for now it is not clear whether the decision will force any reactors to shut down or delay the opening of any new ones.

The crux of the waste issue is that for years, the commission has licensed reactors on the assumption that the federal government would eventually establish a disposal system for spent fuel. An official policy known as the “waste confidence decision” stated, in typical commission lingo, that there was “reasonable assurance” that a burial place would eventually be available and that the fuel could in the meantime be stored in spent fuel pools or on site in dry casks without significant environmental risks.

But in June the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia