NRC at a Glance

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NRC-licensed nuclear reactors generate about 19 percent of U.S. gross electricity, or about 807 billion kilowatt-hours.

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• 94 commercial nuclear power reactors operating in 28 States at 56 sites
  • 63 pressurized-water reactors and 31 boiling-water reactors
• Four reactor fuel vendors
• 23 parent operating companies
• About 80 different designs
• About 6,814 total inspection hours at each operating reactor site in 2019
• Licensees expected to shut down or not seek license renewal include:
  • Exelon has announced their intention to permanently cease operation of Byron Units 1 and 2 by September 2021 and Dresden Units 2 and 3 by November 2021.
  • Indian Point Unit 3 (Entergy) will close by April 30, 2021.
  • Palisades (Entergy) will close by May 31, 2022.
  • Diablo Canyon Units 1 and 2 (Pacific Gas and Electric) plan to close by November 2024 and August 2025, respectively.

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Commercial power reactor operating licenses are valid for 40 years and may be renewed for additional 20-year terms.

• 94 reactors were issued renewal licenses, including eight reactors now permanently shut down.
• Eight reactors operate under their original licenses.

Subsequent License Renewal

This type of licensing would allow plants to operate from 60 to 80

• Four reactors at two sites have been issued subsequent renewed licenses.
• Two reactors at one site have subsequent license renewal applications under review.
• One site with a total of three reactors have submitted letters of intent to request subsequent license renewal.
• One site with a total of two reactors has submitted a subsequent license renewal application, which is currently under docketing acceptance review.

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• Six early site permits have been issued:
  • System Energy Resources, Inc., for the Grand Gulf site in Mississippi
  • Exelon Generation Co., LLC, for the Clinton site in Illinois
  • Dominion Nuclear North Anna, LLC, for the North Anna site in Virginia
  • Southern Nuclear Operating Co., for the Vogtle site in Georgia
  • PSEG Power, LLC, and PSEG Nuclear, LLC, for a site in New Jersey
  • Tennessee Valley Authority for two or more small modular reactor modules at the Clinch River Nuclear Site in Tennessee

• Since June 2007, the NRC has received and docketed 18 combined license (COL) applications for 28 new, large light-water reactors. The NRC has received and docketed a COL application for the Oklo advanced reactor.
• The NRC suspended or canceled 10 COL application reviews at the request of the applicants for Bell Bend, PA; Bellefonte, AL; Callaway, MO; Calvert Cliffs, MD; Comanche Peak, TX; Grand Gulf, MS; Nine Mile Point, NY; River Bend, LA; Shearon Harris, NC; and Victoria County Station, TX.
• The NRC has issued COLs for 14 reactors at Fermi, MI; Levy County, FL; North Anna, VA; South Texas Project, TX; Turkey Point, FL; V.C. Summer, SC; Vogtle, GA; and W.S. Lee, SC. At the licensee’s request, six COLs have been terminated at three sites: Levy County Units 1 and 2 (terminated on April 26, 2018); South Texas Project Units 3 and 4 (terminated on July 12, 2018); and V.C. Summer Units 2 and 3 (terminated on March 6, 2019).

• Six reactor design certifications (DCs) have been issued:
  • General Electric-Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s ABWR (Advanced Boiling-Water Reactor)
  • Westinghouse Electric Company’s System 80+
  • Westinghouse Electric Company’s AP600
  • Westinghouse Electric Company’s AP1000
  • General Electric-Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s ESBWR (Economic Simplified Boiling-Water Reactor)
  • Korean Electric Power Corporation APR 1400 (Advanced Power Reactor)
• One DC application is under review for the NuScale small modular reactor design and has been issued a final safety evaluation report.
• Two DC applications for U.S. EPR (Evolutionary Pressurized-Water Reactor) and US-APWR (Advanced Pressurized-Water Reactor) are suspended at the request of the applicants.
• One DC renewal application is under review for the ABWR design.

• Research and Test Reactors
  • 31 licensed research and test (nonpower) reactors operate in 21 States.
• Medical Radioisotope Facilities
  • Two medical radioisotope facilities are authorized for construction: SHINE Medical Technologies, LLC (SHINE), in Janesville, WI, and Northwest Medical Isotopes, LLC, in Columbia, MO.
  • One operating license application is under review (SHINE).

• The NRC and the Agreement States have 18,664 licensees for medical, academic, industrial, and general users of nuclear materials.
  • The NRC regulates 2,209 licenses.
  • 39 Agreement States regulate 16,455 licenses.
• The agency issues approximately 2,000 new licenses, renewals, or amendments for existing materials licenses annually. The NRC conducts approximately 900 health, safety, and security inspections of materials licensees each year.

• Three uranium recovery sites are licensed by the NRC.
• 10 fuel cycle facilities are licensed by the NRC:
  • One uranium hexafluoride conversion facility (“ready-idle” status)
  • Five uranium fuel fabrication facilities
  • Two gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facilities (one operating and one construction pending)
  • One uranium enrichment laser separation facility (construction on hold)
  • One depleted uranium deconversion facility (construction decision pending)
• The NRC issues about 50 fuel cycle facility licensing actions per year, including amendments; renewals; new licenses; and safety, environmental, and safeguards reviews.

The National Source Tracking System, also known as NSTS, tracks more than 76,000 sources held by about 1,400 NRC and Agreement State licensees. Of those sources, about 52 percent are Category 1 sources and 48 percent are Category 2. The majority are cobalt-60, the most widely used isotope in large sources.

The NRC and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) use the Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System (NMMSS) to track transfers and inventories of source and special nuclear material. Licensees must report their inventories, transfers, purchases, and sales (including import and export) of these materials to the NMMSS. More than 300 licensees report to the NMMSS database, verifying their inventories at least annually by reconciling their transactions against the previous year’s inventory. The database supports U.S. participation in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

• 10 regional compacts
• Four State-licensed disposal facilities

• 80 licenses for independent spent fuel storage installations in 35 States:
  • 15 site-specific licenses (two of these facilities are licensed only, never built or operated)
  • 65 general licenses
• Two applications are under review for consolidated interim storage facilities for spent fuel in Andrews County, TX, and Lea County, NM.

• Approximately 1,000 safety inspections of fuel, reactor, and materials licensees are conducted annually.
• 50–70 new, renewed, or amended container-design applications for the transport of nuclear materials are reviewed annually.
• 150 license applications for the import and export of nuclear materials from the United States are reviewed annually.
• More than 3 million packages of radioactive materials are shipped each year in the United States by road, rail, air, or water. This represents less than 1 percent of the Nation’s yearly hazardous material shipments.

• Approximately 100 materials licenses are terminated each year. The NRC’s decommissioning program focuses on the termination of licenses that are not routine and that require complex activities.
• 25 nuclear power reactors are in various stages of decommissioning (DECON or SAFSTOR), including Duane Arnold (one reactor), which shutdown on August 10, 2020.
• Three research and test reactors are permanently shut down and in various stages of decommissioning.
• 11 complex materials sites are in various stages of decommissioning.
• Two fuel cycle facilities in partial decommissioning and one is undergoing decommissioning.
• Five NRC-licensed uranium recovery facilities are in various stages of decommissioning.

• Every 2 years, each operating nuclear power plant performs a full-scale emergency preparedness exercise inspected by the NRC and evaluated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
• Plants conduct additional emergency drills between full-scale exercises to maintain their preparedness and proficiency in responding to emergencies.
• The NRC spends about 15,000 hours a year scrutinizing security at nuclear power plants, including 8,000 hours of force-on-force inspections. These inspections include mock combat drills and are conducted on a cycle so that each plant undergoes a force-on-force inspection every 3 years.
• The NRC has implemented a comprehensive cybersecurity oversight program for power reactors, which includes routine inspections and requires licensees to isolate critical systems from the Internet.