Chris Schneidmiller
RW Monitor
11/6/2015
Nuclear services provider EnergySolutions announced on Tuesday that it had signed a deal to decommission a shuttered nuclear reactor in Wisconsin.
The new agreement calls for wholesale electricity provider Dairyland Power Cooperative to transfer its possession-only license for the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor facility (LACBWR) to an EnergySolutions subsidiary, LaCrosseSolutions. The company will then take over decommissioning of the entire facility, excluding the spent nuclear fuel storage site, according to an EnergySolutions press release.
The reactor was built in 1973 and was closed and placed into SAFSTOR in April 1987. As part of the decommissioning process, used nuclear fuel was moved in 2012 to a dry cask spent fuel storage site on Dairyland property. The company also in 2007 contracted with EnergySolutions to manage the transfer of the LACBWR reactor pressure vessel and other waste to a disposal facility in South Carolina.
Decommissioning, including demobilizing equipment and system shutdowns, is expected to last five to seven years.
The partners will work together to secure the mandatory regulatory approvals, including from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for the license transfer.
Dairyland will remain the owner of the facility as a whole and its spent nuclear fuel. Following the completion of the decommissioning project, the license will be updated to cover just the site’s dry fuel storage facility and returned to Dairyland.
EnergySolutions said it previously successfully used the same “licensed stewardship” model for decommissioning of the Zion Nuclear Power Station in Illinois.
"Dairyland has found a partner with the necessary expertise and experience to finish decommissioning LACBWR, allowing us to focus on our core mission to safely and reliably deliver power to our members," Rob Palmberg, Dairyland vice president of generation, said in the press release. "Since we will continue to operate our Genoa #3 Station at the site, we have reached an arrangement where Dairyland and EnergySolutions will work together to ensure success of the LACBWR decommissioning while minimizing any impact to the ongoing Genoa #3 operations."
EnergySolutions did not respond to a request for further information on the deal.
