By John Stang
The Omaha Public Power District calculates that switching to an accelerated decommissioning will cost roughly $165 million less in the long run for its Fort Calhoun reactor near Omaha.
The OPPD submitted its revised post-shutdown decommissioning activities report (PSDAR) to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Dec. 16, 2019. The revised PSDAR figure, about $1.13 billion, is close to the spending level cited in an Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) analysis submitted in late 2018 to the utility’s board of directors.
When OPPD retired its Fort Calhoun reactor in October 2016, it announced plans to place the reactor into SAFSTOR (safe storage): a mode of decommissioning under which final environmental remediation can be delayed for up to 60 years while radiation levels drop and funding levels grow. Last year, OPPD approved a plan for Fort Calhoun to speed up decommission with a target of finishing the work in 2026.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will review the revised PSDAR for completeness, but there is no formal approval required by the agency, a spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor. In the coming months, the commission will send the OPPD an acknowledgment letter, the spokesperson said.
A rough breakdown of the new PSDAR is:
- About $721 million for decommissioning, up to terminating the site’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission license. The reactor’s major components are due to be removed by 2023, and the buildings are schedule to be demolished by 2025 to three feet beneath ground level.
- Some $301 million to maintain the dry storage site from 2030 to 2058, until the reactor is eventually moved offsite.
- $55.5 million or so for putting the spent reactor fuel in dry storage, which is due to be completed in 2020.
- About $45 million for site restoration, to be completed by 2026.
By comparison, projections for putting Fort Calhoun into SAFSTOR assumed $1.295 billion in costs through 2066: $882 million for license termination, the primary decommissioning operation; $365 million for spent fuel management; and $48 million for site restoration.
Meanwhile, the new PSDAR noted that as of Dec. 1, 2018, Fort Calhoun’s decommissioning trust fund had $295.8 million for the main decommission and another $170.2 for managing spent fuel and site restoration.
OPPD expects to finish moving its spent fuel to dry storage this summer. Currently, it has moved nine out of 30 canisters to dry storage.
