Site-Specific Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants: Regarding Subsequent License Renewal for Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, Unit 1 – Draft Report for Comment (NUREG-1437 Supplement 26 Second Renewal)

This publication has been issued for public comment. Comments will be accepted until June 10, 2024. To submit comments, please see Docket ID Number NRC-2024-0037.

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Publication Information

Manuscript Completed: April 2024
Date Published: April 2024

Division of License Renewal
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001

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Abstract

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) prepared this site-specific environmental impact statement (EIS) as part of its environmental review of Xcel Energy’s request to renew the operating license for Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, Unit 1 (Monticello) for an additional 20 years. This EIS includes the site-specific evaluation of the environmental impacts of the proposed action (Monticello subsequent license renewal [SLR]), and alternatives to SLR. As alternatives, the NRC considered: (1) natural gas and renewables; (2) renewables and storage; (3) new nuclear small modular reactors, and (4) the no-action alternative. This EIS considers information contained in Xcel Energy’s January 9, 2023, submittal (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System Accession No. ML23009A352). Xcel Energy prepared the Monticello SLR application in accordance with Commission direction. Specifically, in February 2022, the Commission issued three memoranda and orders: Commission Legal Issuance (CLI)-22-02, CLI-22-03, and CLI-22-04 (NRC 2022-TN8182, NRC 25 2022-TN9844, and NRC 2022-TN9553), concerning SLR environmental reviews. In CLI-22-02, the Commission found that the License Renewal Generic Environmental Impact Statement (LR GEIS) did not cover the SLR period and that 10 CFR 51.53(c)(3) (TN250) does not apply to SLR applicants and, therefore, the NRC staff may not exclusively rely on the 2013 License Renewal Generic Environmental Impact Statement and Table B–1 for the evaluation of Category 1 issues for SLR. In its decisions, the Commission directed the staff to revise the LR GEIS and Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 51 to address SLR and determined that the NRC staff must address these impacts on a site-specific basis in an EIS if an SLR applicant elects not to await the issuance of a revised GEIS and rule. Following its receipt of Xcel Energy’s SLR application and site-specific environmental report, the NRC staff issued a notice of the staff’s intent to conduct a scoping process and to publish a site-specific EIS for Monticello SLR (88 FR 15103-TN9715). The NRC staff conducted the scoping process, and then published a scoping summary report (NRC 2024-TN9817).

The NRC staff has prepared this site-specific EIS in accordance with CLI-22-02 (NRC 2022-TN8182) and CLI-22-03 (NRC 2022-TN9844). This EIS considers, among other things, the information contained in Xcel Energy’s January 9, 2023, SLR application submittal (Xcel 2023-TN9084), and evaluates all the environmental impacts applicable to Monticello SLR on a site-specific basis. Based on its evaluation of environmental impacts, the NRC staff's preliminary recommendation is that the adverse environmental impacts of Monticello SLR are not so great that preserving the option of SLR for energy planning decisionmakers would be unreasonable. The EIS also considers the comments submitted during the NRC environmental scoping period conducted in March 2023 as summarized in the NRC staff's scoping summary report (NRC 2024-TN9817). The NRC staff based its preliminary recommendation on the following:

• Xcel Energy's environmental report
• consultation with Federal, State, Tribal, and local governmental agencies
• the NRC staff's independent environmental review
• the consideration of public comments received during the scoping process