Public Policy

Senator Carper: Thank you. I think I want to start with a more general question and then maybe come to something more specific to a part of the country in which I live and represent. A couple of months ago I took a bunch of Boy Scouts from Wilmington, Delaware down to the Norfolk Naval Station, as I do every few years. Both our boys are active in scouting. I took Troop 67 back to the Norfolk Naval Station. We visited submarines and nuclear powered submarines and ships, and an aircraft carrier in port.
 
The aircraft carrier itself is about 1,000 feet long. It is at least 20 stories high. There are roughly 5,000 sailors aboard the ship. When the airplane is on board, I think it brings a lot more people and maybe 75 or so aircraft. The interesting thing for me about the nuclear-powered carrier is that it stops to refuel about once every 25 years, unlike the other ships that were on either side of it which need to refuel about every week. For me, that is always a good reminder that nuclear energy is not just an important part of our military and our naval forces, but it is also an important part of our energy.

Looking over the briefing materials, I was reminded again of the amount of CO2, carbon dioxide, that the nuclear power plants do not put into the air. I was reminded of the amount of dollars that reliance on nuclear energy does not add to our trade deficit. I was reminded of the reduction in imported oil that a reliance on nuclear power for the generation of electricity affords us.

I sit here today as one who believes that it is important that we continue to maintain and strengthen going forward our reliance on nuclear energy as part of, not all of, but part of our energy needs in this country.

I was going to get into some of the questioning that our Chairman got into with respect to qualified personnel. I think he has covered that about as much as I would want to. I would to focus instead on the future of nuclear energy in our country and a little bit about the transportation of nuclear waste. Then I have a couple of specific questions that deal with the nuclear power plant on the other side of the Delaware River from us in Salem, New Jersey.

I would just start off with a couple of questions about nuclear energy. I am going to ask you to be fairly brief in responding to these questions. I will direct them, Chairman Diaz, to you and ask you to defer to your colleagues and your fellow Commissioners to jump in whenever you feel the need.

I think today about 22 percent of our electricity supply comes from nuclear energy. I guess my first question is: Twenty years from now, do you think we will still be getting 22 percent of our electricity from nuclear power? Do you think it will be more? Do you think it will be less?

Mr. Diaz [Nils Diaz, Chairman, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission]: I believe that that question probably should be answered by the next panel. We are ready to do our job of regulating the industry. The industry is considering additional additions to the fleet. We believe that we have done what we needed to do which was to ensure that anyone that wanted a license to be renewed for an extra period of time of 20 years would have a fair, equitable, and disciplined approach to renewing that license. I think the process that is in place is working well.

So in many respects, one of the things that happened is that we have been able to have the existing fleet working. We have also been able to certify new designs that if the industry wants to, they will be able to use those certified designs to add new plants to the fleet. But it is the industry who needs to make that their decision.

I believe that the best that they can do under the present circumstances is to maintain over the next 15 years the 20 percent to 21 percent that they are presently generating. That would include a few new nuclear power plants because the overall capacity is increasing.

Senator Carper: Thank you. You alluded to this. Maybe somebody is going to be proposing to build a new nuclear plant or two. Just sketch for me very briefly the approval process that they go through with respect to your Agency.

Mr. Diaz: Very quickly, we have two processes — and old process and a new process, that we believe is better, which the Congress actually established. These new processes combine an operating license, which allows the industry to apply simultaneously for the construction and the operating permit. We already have three applications for early site permits to clear the environmental concerns of a site. We also have certified the designs, which means that the industry or the utility can actually apply to put that certified design on a pre-approved site, making the period of the licensee and their construction and going to operation shorter, something the industry is very much in favor of, and the Congress approved that process in 1992.