NRC ISSUES SAFETY EVALUATION REPORT FOR THREE MILE ISLAND 

NUCLEAR PLANT LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION 

 

 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has issued its safety evaluation report (SER) 

with Open Items 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 documents the interim 

results of the NRC staff’s review of the license renewal application and site audits of TMI-1’s 

aging management programs to address the safety of plant operations during the period of 

extended operations. 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. 

 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. 

 In a letter dated March 13, Brian Holian, director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor 

Regulation’s Division of License Renewal, provided Exelon with the SER. The SER will be 

available on the NRC’s Web site at 

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications.html. Issuance of a SER is 

a typical milestone in a license renewal review. 

 The NRC staff will present its final conclusions on the license renewal application in an 

update to this SER which is estimated to be issued in July 2009. 

 The SER and the license renewal application have also been provided to the NRC’s 

Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), an independent body of experts that 

advises the NRC on reactor safety matters. An ACRS subcommittee is expected to discuss the 

SER during a meeting on April 1. The meeting, which will take place at NRC Headquarters in 

NRC NEWS

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 

Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 

E-mail: opa@nrc.gov 

Site: http://www.nrc.gov

No. 09-047 March 13, 2009
Rockville, Md., will be open to the public. Details of this meeting will be announced on the 

agency’s Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/index.cfm. The full 

ACRS will later issue a report discussing the results of its review. 

 A copy of the letter and the Safety Evaluation Report will be available in the NRC’s 

Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) under accession number 

ML090710604. ADAMS is accessible via the agency’s Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/readingrm/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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