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John Livingston's

The Nuclear Electrical Engineer

An educational resource for electrical engineers in the nuclear power industry

Here you can find design tips on technical skills like cable and breaker sizing, short-circuit evaluations and more, PLUS deep-dive analysis of nuclear-specific topics like design basis, Tech Specs, UFSARs, and safety-related SSCs — built from primary source documents.

Tip of the Week · Feature

Regulatory change is in the air

John Livingston
April 23, 2016 · 1 min read

The last major legislation altering the atomic regulatory structure was passed in 1974: the Energy Reorganization Act.

That act split the AEC into two different agencies: the NRC and the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration (which is now part of the Department of Energy).

Now, there’s a new bill winding its way through Congress that intends to reform the NRC’s licensing and fee recovery structures. The Senate bill is called the “Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act.”

You can read the NEI’s press release at the following link, which also includes a link to the actual text of the bill:

NEI Supports Senate Bill to Modernize Nuclear Energy Regulation

I encourage you to read through the bill. It’s only 37 pages.

One aspect of the bill that is not mentioned in the NEI article is a provision buried in the bill’s last two pages.

That provision would allocate government grant money to be used to partially fund the licensing process for new reactors.