NRC ISSUES FINAL SAFETY EVALUATION REPORT FOR 

THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR PLANT LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION 

 

 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has issued its final safety evaluation report 

(SER) for the proposed renewal of the operating license for the Three Mile Island Nuclear 

Station, Unit 1 (TMI-1), located in Middletown, Pa. The report concluded that there are no open 

items that would preclude license renewal for an additional 20 years of operation. 

 The Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1 is a pressurized-water reactor located 10 

miles southeast of Harrisburg, Pa. The current operating license expires April 19, 2014. Exelon 

Generation Group, LLC, owner and operator (formerly Amergen Energy Company, LLC.), 

submitted an application to the NRC on Jan. 8, 2008, to extend the TMI-1 license by 20 years. 

Under NRC regulations, the original operating license for a nuclear power plant has a term of 40 

years. The license may be renewed for up to an additional 20 years if NRC requirements are met. 

Therefore if approved, the current operating license for TMI-1, which expires on April 19, 2014, 

would be extended until 2034. 

 The SER documents the results of the NRC staff’s review of the license renewal 

application and site audits of plant’s aging management programs to address the safety of plant 

operations during the period of extended operation. Overall, the results show that the applicant 

has identified actions that have been or will be taken to manage the effects of aging in the 

appropriate safety systems, structures and components of the plant and that their functions will 

be maintained during the period of extended operation. 

 The NRC’s independent Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) will 

evaluate the SER and make its recommendation before the agency makes a final decision on the 

renewal of the license. The ACRS will hold a meeting that is open to public participation. The 

meetings will take place at NRC Headquarters in Rockville, Md. on Sept. 10. The meeting will 

be announced on the agency’s Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/publicmeetings/index.cfm. Afterwards, the ACRS will issue a report discussing the results of its 

review. 

 

NRC NEWS

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 

Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 

E-mail: opa.resource@nrc.gov

Site: http://www.nrc.gov

No. 09-119 June 30, 2009
A copy of the SER will be available in the NRC’s Agencywide Documents Access and 

Management Systems (ADAMS) under accession number ML091660470. ADAMS is accessible 

via the agency’s Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Help in using ADAMS 

is available by contacting the NRC’s Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-

4737, or by e-mail at pdr.resource@nrc.gov. 

 

Documents related to TMI-1 are also located at the following locations: the Middletown 

Public Library, 20 North Catherine Street in Middletown; the Penn State Harrisburg Library, 351 

Olmsted Drive in Middletown; and the Londonderry Township Municipal Building, 783 South 

Geyers Church Road in Middletown. 

 Additional information concerning license renewal in general and the TMI-1 application 

in particular can be found at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/licenserenewal-bg.html and http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal.html respectively. 

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