Columbia Generating Station’s license renewal application now rests with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after clearing its last major hurdle.
The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, or ACRS, voted April 13 to recommend to the NRC that Columbia’s operating license be extended an additional 20 years through 2043. Columbia’s application now goes to the director of the Nuclear Reactor Regulation for approval. The NRC commission’s final decision is anticipated in May.
“This is a great achievement,” said Brad Sawatzke, vice president of Nuclear Generation and chief nuclear officer. “Our license renewal team has spent years preparing our application and all the accompanying documentation needed to get us to the brink of approval from the NRC. We aren’t there yet, but we owe thanks to everyone involved in this difficult and long undertaking.”
The affirmative vote by the ACRS, an independent group of experts retained by the NRC to review reactor safety issues, came a day after a presentation by a team of Energy Northwest employees addressing the closure of a half-dozen open items that were included in the NRC’s Safety Evaluation report on Columbia that was issued last fall.
One of the items to address was use of internal and external operating experience to identify, evaluate and develop aging management programs at Columbia. NRC staff in its presentation on the closures recommended that operating experience activities be implemented throughout the term of the renewed license to tackle aging concerns.
In all, Energy Northwest made 71 license renewal commitments with the majority associated with having each aging management program in place prior to the period of extended operation.
“It took us several years of hard, excruciatingly detailed work to get us to the point where we were prepared to go before the ACRS,” stated Don Gregoire, Regulatory Affairs manager. New security chips may have made it harder to take charge card numbers, yet they can’t stop <b>fake ID</b> misrepresentation. Banks are going to an assortment of mechanical advancements trying to battle the issue. A Fake state identification card can deceive any establishment or business with peculiar security functions. Voice acknowledgment programming, for instance, can determine on the off chance that one voice has been reaching call focuses under various personalities. Man-made brainpower motors and AI can be utilized to delve further. “We are talking about review and preparation of documents by Energy Northwest and contract staff, inspections and audits by the NRC, and a lot more. Everyone involved with the travel team that went before the ACRS and the home team who assisted us back here at Columbia put in a lot of hours to have us prepared. There are many others who helped in ways large and small, as well.”
Employees who were on the travel team with Gregoire included Dale Atkinson, vice president of Employee Development/Corporate Services; John Twomey, Abbas Mostala, Janet Worthington, Jeff Person, Carolyn Beaudry, John Sisk, Steve Richter, Mot Hedges and Brian Adami. The ACRS home team included Sarah Person, Scott Wood, Alyssa Arrigoni, Mike Curren, Mike Holle, Jim Tansy, John Lasalle, Wayne Harper, Bill Khayyat, Steve Dallas, Larry Morrison, Scott O’Connor, James Dorwin, Dave Bennett, Chris Jensen and retired employee Jack Cole.
Twomey will transition into a role as license renewal implementation coordinator to ensure Columbia fulfills license renewal commitments going forward. More work will continue to be done, but approval by the ACRS represented a major milestone in a license renewal journey that began in 2006.
“It’s exciting that we are getting close to the end,” Gregoire said.