NRC must ensure that the NuScale reactor building does not collapse in the earthquake

WASHINGTON (April 27, 2022) – Internal documents released today by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRC) reveal that a senior NRC structural engineer has raised serious concerns in 2020 about earthquake resistance in the NuScale Small-Scale Nuclear Reactor design. The so-called “carbon-neutral” energy project plans to build six 77-megawatt NuScale reactors at Idaho National Laboratory, with the first unit coming online in 2029. NuScale received standard design approval from the NRC in September 2020 for a 50-megawatt version.

However, in a “different professional opinion” submitted shortly after the NRC granted approval for the standard design, Dr John Ma claimed that the building design intended to enclose the reactor units and that the spent fuel pool provided no guarantee that it could withstand an “earthquake on Revision level—the largest earthquake considered in the design—without collapsing, and may be susceptible to smaller earthquakes as well.

Dr. Ma wrote that “the collapse of the reactor building … could cause an early and large release of radioactive material into the atmosphere and the ground, which could kill people. Therefore, it is important and necessary to ensure that the reactor building does not collapse during a revision level earthquake.” He concluded: that “the NuScale reactor building design is incomplete, seismic margin is unknown, and it is potentially unsafe.” Dr. Ma argued that the building should be designed according to standard structural engineering practices for conventional non-nuclear buildings to ensure that it would not collapse during such an earthquake.

Dr Ma’s opposition was dismissed in April 2021 after a review by an ad hoc committee and NRC management. In response, Nuclear Reactor Regulatory Director Andrea Vail concluded that for a review-level earthquake, “Commission policy … does not require staff to check with 100 percent certainty that the reactor building will not collapse.” Dr. Ma appealed the management’s decision in June 2021, saying that “it is my professional and civic duty to raise concern when I see … there is no evidence of this.” [the reactor building] The design foundation would not collapse during an earthquake and Mrs. Phil’s response hit the ultimate goal of building design by the structural engineering profession. “

Finally, in February 2022, the NRC’s chief operating officer partially reversed the earlier dismissal of Dr Ma’s complaint, concluding that “the basis for accepting NuScale’s mean stress approach to reactor building design has not been adequately documented”, and instructing staff to review a technical approach and assess what If there will be any implications for the approval of the standard design that the NRC issued to NuScale in September 2020.

Dr. Edwin Lyman, Director of Nuclear Energy Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it is commendable for raising such troubling concerns regarding the vulnerability of the NuScale reactor design to earthquakes, and the NRC should be commended for finally taking it seriously. Seismic design of structures with critical safety functions in nuclear power plants is stronger, not weaker, than those of conventional buildings. NuScale’s business study is based on its assertion that it is a safer nuclear reactor — now is the time to prove it by addressing these safety concerns.”

Dr. Ma’s various professional opinions and subsequent documents can be found here.

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