Nuclear Fusion Won’t Be Regulated in the US the Same Way as Nuclear Fission

Last week there was some good news for startups working on commercial nuclear fusion in the U.S. And it came from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (or NRC), the top governing body for America’s nuclear power plants nuclear materials, reports CNBC:

The top regulatory agency for nuclear materials safety in the U.S. voted unanimously to regulate the burgeoning fusion industry differently than the nuclear fission industry, and fusion startups are celebrating that as a major win. As a result, some provisions specific to fission reactors, like requiring funding to cover claims from nuclear meltdowns, won’t apply to fusion plants. (Fusion reactors cannot melt down….)

Other differences include looser requirements around foreign ownership of nuclear fusion plants, and the dispensing of mandatory hearings at the federal level during the licensing process, said Andrew Holland, CEO of the industry group, the Fusion Industry Association… The approach to regulating fusion is akin to the regulatory regime that is currently used to regulate particle accelerators, which are machines that are capable of making elementary nuclear particles, like electrons or protons, move really fast, the Fusion Industry Association says…

Technically speaking, fusion will be regulated under Part 30 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Jeff Merrifield, a former NRC commissioner, told CNBC. The regulatory structure for nuclear fission is under Part 50 of that code. “The regulatory structure needed to regulate particle accelerators under Part 30, is far simpler, less costly and more efficient than the more complicated rules imposed on fission reactors under Part 50,” Merrifield told CNBC. “By making this decision to use the Part 30, the commission recognized the decreased risk of fusion technologies when compared with traditional nuclear reactors and has imposed a framework that more appropriately aligns the risks and the regulations,” he said.
“Private fusion companies have raised about $5 billion to commercialize and scale fusion technology,” the article points out, “and so the decision from the NRC on how the industry would be regulated is a big deal for companies building in the space.” And they shared three reactions from the commercial fusion industry:

• The CEO of the industry group, the Fusion Industry Association told CNBC the decision was
  “extremely important.”

• The scientific director for fusion startup Focused Energy told CNBC the decision “removes a major area of uncertainty for the industry.”

• The general counsel for nuclear fusion startup Helion told CNBC. “It is now incumbent on us to demonstrate our safety case as we bring fusion to the grid, and we look forward to working with the public and regulatory community closely on our first deployments.”