Critical Issues in Nuclear Plant License Renewal in the U. S. A

Supporters of the nuclear power legislation figured that they could accept a compromise that would give the skeptics some measure of satisfaction. They agreed that licenses could be renewed, and they set their staff people to work on how many years a licenses could be renewed, and they set their staff people to work on how many years a license should be allowed to run. They called several major utility companies, and asked how old their coal plants were when they finally shut them down. They were told that old plants were kept operable for meeting peak loads or unexpected capacity crises, until the cost of maintaining them and fueling them became uneconomical, or they built new plants and really did not need them at all anymore. They explained that their investment cost had been written off years before, so it was simply a matter of out-of-pocket costs, and having available enough system capacity compared to projected system peak loads. So Congressional staffers asked questions which would get data: How old were your older plants when you actually did shut them down? They averaged the answers and they came out between 35 and 40 years. An agreement was reached that nuclear power plant licenses would run for 40 years form the date of issuance of the construction permit, and could be renewed