- Company will take ownership of reactor sites, used fuel, decommissioning trust funds
- Similar business models being pursued at other decommissioning plants
- NEI: Innovative decommissioning models drive industry efficiencies
Camden, New Jersey-based nuclear fuel management company Holtec International announced this week it would purchase three single-unit nuclear power plants that are slated to close prematurely, and use its expertise to greatly accelerate their decommissioning and site restoration.
As Exelon Generation’s Oyster Creek Generating Station in Forked River, New Jersey, prepares to shut down permanently this fall, Holtec announced July 31 it would purchase the plant and manage the plant decommissioning and site restoration activities. The company said its experience and state-of-the-art technologies would allow it to complete the decommissioning “within eight years,” which is more than 50 years ahead of the 60-year timeline allowed by NRC regulations.
The 625-megawatt Oyster Creek facility began operating in December 1969 and is the oldest commercially operated nuclear power plant in the nation. Exelon announced in February 2018 it would be closing the reactor permanently at the end of its current operating cycle, as part of an agreement with the State of New Jersey.
“This landmark agreement is good news for Oyster Creek employees, the Lacey community and the state of New Jersey. Holtec’s commitment to the nuclear industry and its presence in New Jersey will allow many of our employees previously facing relocation to continue living and working in the Garden State,” Exelon Generation Chief Nuclear Officer Bryan Hanson said.
The next day, the Camden, New Jersey-based Holtec announced similar agreements with Entergy Corp.’s subsidiaries that own the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts and the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan. Those plants are slated to shut down in 2019 and 2022 respectively.
“Transferring our Pilgrim and Palisades plants to Holtec, with its vast experience and innovative use of technology, will lead to their decommissioning faster than if they were to remain under Entergy’s ownership. Earlier decommissioning benefits the surrounding communities,” Entergy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Leo Denault said.
Under the agreements, which are subject to approvals from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other agencies, Holtec will assume ownership of the sites, the used nuclear fuel and the decommissioning trust funds.
The Aug. 1 announcement also noted a similar transaction under which Holtec would take over the decommissioned Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant site in Michigan, where only the used fuel dry cask storage facility remains.
The company said it intends to leverage this newly acquired “decommissioning fleet” to “transform the state-of-the-art in decommissioning into a rapidly executed, low dose and unimpeachably safe program.”
Holtec plans to use Comprehensive Decommissioning International LLC (CDI)—its newly formed joint venture with Montreal’s SNC-Lavalin—to accelerate the plants’ decontamination and decommissioning timelines to eight years after their slated closures, many years shorter than the usual timeframes for these activities.
Holtec’s March 2017 application for a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) for U.S. commercial used nuclear fuel in New Mexico is under NRC review and could be licensed to operate by 2020.
According to Holtec, “Once licensed, fuel could be sent to the New Mexico CISF based upon the established use of interim storage locations by the federal government which would allow Holtec to return the full site to unrestricted use.”
Similar business models, by which decommissioning and used fuel management companies acquire shutdown reactor sites and accelerate their decommissioning, are relatively new.
In 2010 and 2015 respectively, Utah-headquartered radioactive waste management company EnergySolutions Inc. formed decommissioning-specific subsidiaries for the Zion Nuclear Power Station in Illinois and the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor in Wisconsin under a “license stewardship” model, whereby the reactor licensees retain ownership of the site and used fuel while regulatory interactions are undertaken jointly.
Since December 2016, global infrastructure firm AECOM and EnergySolutions have pooled their expertise to manage the decommissioning of Southern California Edison’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station that shut down in 2013, forming a joint venture called SONGS Decommissioning Solutions. Holtec also has taken on responsibility for managing used fuel at that site. The project is expected to create 600 new jobs over the project’s initial 10-year dismantlement and decontamination phase.
In November 2016, Entergy Nuclear agreed to sell its shutdown Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to subsidiaries of New York-based NorthStar Group Services Inc., which would accelerate the site’s decommissioning and site restoration by more than 40 years and result in substantial savings.
In February 2017, NorthStar and Washington, D.C.-based Orano Inc. (formerly Areva Nuclear Materials) formed a joint venture, Accelerated Decommissioning Partners, to acquire and decommission shutdown nuclear reactors.
The nuclear industry welcomes innovative decommissioning solutions such as these.
“As decommissioning becomes an increasingly important part of the nuclear value chain, the efficiencies gained through innovative decommissioning business models promise to further improve the competitive position of nuclear energy in the electricity marketplace,” McCullum said.
More information on decommissioning nuclear power plants is available on NEI’s website.