NRC ACCEPTS EPR DESIGN APPLICATION FOR REVIEW
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted for review an application from Areva to certify the Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) design.

“We already have a partial application to build and operate an EPR in Maryland, and several utilities have told us their applications will be for EPRs,” said Bill Borchardt, Director of the NRC’s Office of New Reactors. “The staff expects their review work will continue at least into 2011.”

The EPR is a large pressurized water reactor of evolutionary design, with a design output of approximately 1,600 megawatts of electricity. Areva filed its application Dec. 11, 2007, to certify the design, which is currently under construction at the Olkiluoto site in Finland and at Flamanville, France. The EPR application, minus proprietary or security-related details, is available on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/design-cert/epr.html. Docketing this application does not indicate whether the Commission will approve or reject the request. The docket number established for this application is 52-020.

If the NRC certifies the EPR, a company applying for a license to build and operate a new nuclear power plant in the United States could choose to use the design and reference it in the application. Safety issues resolved within the scope of the design certification are not subject to litigation with respect to that individual license application, although site-specific design information and environmental impacts associated with building and operating the plant at a particular location could be litigated. NRC has certified four other standard reactor designs.

The staff’s technical review will include requests for additional information, as needed, and the staff will issue a Safety Evaluation Report after all technical and safety questions have been resolved. The NRC would then certify the design through an agency rulemaking, which includes an opportunity for public participation.

The agency is currently reviewing General Electric’s Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor and is conducting an acceptance check on an application to certify Mistubishi’s US-Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor design. Information about the design certification process is available on the NRC Web site here: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/design-cert.html. The NRC’s regulations describe the certification process in Subpart B of Part 52, available on the agency’s Web site here: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part052/.

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Tuesday, April 08, 2008