NRC RENEWS BROWNS FERRY NUCLEAR PLANT
OPERATING LICENSES FOR AN ADDITIONAL 20 YEARS
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The Browns Ferry plant is located on the north shore of Wheeler Reservoir in Limestone County, Ala., approximately 10 miles northwest of Decatur. The licensee, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), submitted its license renewal application Dec. 31, 2003. With the renewal, the license for Unit 1 is extended until Dec. 20, 2033; the license for Unit 2 is extended until June 28, 2034; and the license for Unit 3 is extended until July 2, 2036.

The renewed licenses were signed today at the plant by James Dyer, director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. NRC Chairman Nils J. Diaz attended the signing ceremony.

"The NRC is utilizing a fair, equitable and safety-driven process to review license renewal applications in a timely manner," Diaz said at the signing ceremony.

All three units of the Browns Ferry plant were shut down in 1985 but retained NRC operating licenses. Unit 2 was restarted in 1991 and Unit 3 was restarted in 1995. TVA has been doing extensive work on Unit 1 and says it expects to have that unit ready to begin operating again by 2007.

The NRC’s environmental review for this license renewal is described in a site-specific supplement to the NRC’s "Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Power Plants" (NUREG-1437, Supplement 21), issued in June. The review concluded there were no environmental impacts that would preclude renewal of the licenses for environmental reasons. Public meetings to discuss the environmental review were held near the plant April 1, 2004, and Jan. 25, 2005.

After carefully reviewing the plant’s safety systems and specifications, the staff concluded that there were no safety concerns that would preclude license renewal, because the licensee had demonstrated effectively the capability to manage the effects of plant aging. The "Safety Evaluation Report Related to the License Renewal of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3" (NUREG-1843) and a supplement were published in April. In addition, NRC conducted inspections of the plant to verify information submitted by the licensee. The reports relating to the Browns Ferry renewal are available on the NRC Web site at this address: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/browns-ferry.html.

On March 23, the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards - an independent body of technical experts which advises the Commission - issued its recommendation that the operating licenses for Browns Ferry be renewed. That recommendation is contained in "Report on the Safety Aspects of the License Renewal Application for the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3." This document is available on the NRC Web site at this address: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/acrs/letters/2006/.

The Browns Ferry renewals bring the total number of renewals to 42 reactor units. A complete listing of renewal applications can be found on the NRC Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal.html.

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Thursday, February 22, 2007