Holtec International believes it can complete decommissioning of the three-reactor Indian Point Energy Center by 2036, assuming it receives federal authorization to buy the Buchanan, N.Y., nuclear power plant.
The Camden, N.J., energy technology company laid out its schedule in a presentation Thursday to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in advance of applying to assume the site’s federal licenses from current owner Entergy.
The power company plans to retire Indian Point’s reactor Unit 2 by April 30, 2020, and Unit 3 a year later. Reactor Unit 1 has been shuttered since 1974.
In April, Entergy said it would sell the entire facility to Holtec, which would then assume full responsibility for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management. First, the NRC must approve the transfer of the plant’s reactor operations and spent fuel storage licenses.
Entergy and Holtec plan to submit their joint license transfer application in November and are requesting NRC approval by November 2020, according to Mandy Halter, acting Entergy vice president for nuclear regulatory assurance. The companies hope to complete the sale by the third quarter of 2021.
After finishing the acceptance review of the application, the federal industry regulator would conduct a detailed technical evaluation of the potential environmental, safety, and security impacts of the license transfers.
A number of other documents from Holtec and Entergy are due next month to the NRC, reflecting their separate decommissioning approaches, executives said Thursday. That might be necessary if Entergy for any reason is unable to seal the deal with Holtec. Documents include each company’s post-shutdown decommissioning activities report (PSDAR) and decommissioning cost estimate, along with respective requests for regulatory exemptions to use Indian Point’s decommissioning trust funds for spent fuel management.
New Orleans-based Entergy has planned to transfer used fuel from the two reactors into dry storage by 2024, then place the facilities in “safe storage” (SAFSTOR) mode until 2069.
Ultimately, roughly 4,000 used fuel assemblies would be placed in dry storage. Those are currently split between dry-fuel casks, two spent fuel pools, and active use in Units 2 and 3.
Under SAFSTOR, final deactivation, decontamination, and demolition for a reactor can be delayed for up to 60 years while funding levels increase and radiation levels decrease. The Entergy decommissioning plan calls for Units 1, 2, and 3 to be decommissioned in sequence through 2077, at which time their NRC licenses would be terminated.
Holtec is offering a significantly expedited schedule, with decommissioning and site restoration conducted from 2024 to 2036, according to the presentation. At that point the site license would be amended solely to cover the spent fuel storage pad. That license would remain in effect until the used fuel is removed for off-site storage or disposal – potentially at the centralized, interim used-fuel storage site Holtec wants to build in southeastern New Mexico.
The decommissioning trusts for Indian Point’s reactors held $2.1 billion as of Sept. 30. There was no discussion during Thursday’s meeting of the estimated cost of cleanup, and a Holtec spokesman said the figure would be included in the company’s upcoming decommissioning cost estimate. However, the Entergy-Holtec presentation says the trusts would be sufficient to cover Holtec’s costs for all cleanup and spent fuel management at Indian Point. The company would expect to retain some portion of the trusts once decommissioning is complete.
If the sale goes through, Holtec subsidiary Nuclear Asset Management Co. would own all three reactors. The licensed operator would be Holtec Decommissioning International. Comprehensive Decommissioning International (CDI), a Holtec joint venture with Canadian engineering multinational SNC-Lavalin, would manage the actual decommissioning.
Roughly 300 decommissioning personnel expected to be on-site at that point would be offered positions with Comprehensive Decommissioning International. Indian Point currently employs about 875 workers.
Holtec plans to buy several retired or soon-to-close power plants for decommissioning, with CDI doing the work in each case. While its July 1 acquisition of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey largely went unopposed, it has faced more heat for the subsequent purchase of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts. The commonwealth last month sued the NRC for approving the license transfer before ruling on Massachusetts’ petition for a hearing in the proceeding.
At the meeting Thursday, New York officials discussed a concern raised in other states – Holtec’s ability to ensure it has the funding to complete decommissioning in the event of unanticipated developments in the project. Holtec and Entergy did not respond directly those comments. But their presentation says the license transfer application will provide ‘financial data supporting the adequacy of the [nuclear decommissioning trust] funding.”
Holtec Decommissioning International Chief Operating Officer Pam Cowan emphasized the capabilities of the company and SNC-Lavalin in nuclear operations, decommissioning, and spent fuel management. That includes Holtec’s technical background in engineering and SNC-Lavalin’s experience in construction, along with integration of Indian Point personnel specializing in plant operations, emergency planning, and security.
“I know that we’ve heard before, ‘Does Holtec have the experience?’ We have the experience,” said Cowan, a nuclear engineer.
The company does use specialist vendors in areas where it might not have the necessary experience, which will include reactor segmentation providers at Indian Point, she added.
Several callers into the meeting raised issues with Holtec’s operations and behavior in other projects, including its role as the used-fuel offloading contractor for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California. Those include scraping of spent-fuel canisters as they are placed into dry-storage slots and an August 2018 mishap in which one canister was left at risk of an 18-foot drop for nearly an hour.
Richard Webster, legal program director for the New York state clean-water advocacy organization Riverkeeper, asked why Entergy selected Holtec given the company’s history – including its temporary prohibition on doing business with the Tennessee Valley Authority, plus a $2 million penalty, following a bribery case.
“Character is an issue in license transfer. So my question for Entergy is why did you select Holtec?” Webster said.
An NRC moderator said Webster’s comments had been noted in the official record of the meeting, but were “out of scope” with the immediate discussion. Holtec, via the spokesman, also declined to discuss specific comments from the meeting.
