Huntington Ingalls Industries, best known for building nuclear-powered warships for the Navy, is probing the commercial decommissioning market, a senior executive told RadWaste Monitor this week.
“We actually have looked at the decommissioning models and there are some models that are more attractive to us than others and we have explored opportunities in that market and we’ll probably continue to do so at some level,” Michael Lempke, president of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), Nuclear and Environmental Services unit said in an interview Thursday.
Between shipbuilding and work on four Department of Energy defense-nuclear contracts at three sites, HII does most of its nuclear work for the U.S. government.
“We built piece parts for Vogtle and Sumner,” Lempke said. “On budget, on time and at the requisite quality for our customer there. So we have been a contributing member of the new-build community, which as you know has had a few speed bumps, to acknowledge that.”
Vogtle in South Carolina is supposed to start up two new Westinghouse AP 1000 reactors this decade. Sumner in South Carolina called off construction of two planned AP 1000 units in 2017. Westinghouse’s 2017 bankruptcy rocked both sites.
