Holtec International believes it can complete decommissioning of the three nuclear reactors at the Indian Point Energy Center in upstate New York in 15 years at a cost of $2.3 billion, according to a new filing with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The New Jersey energy technology specialist plans to buy the Buchanan, N.Y., facility from power company Entergy. The planned deal, announced in April, is among several contracts Holtec has sealed or in the making to acquire retiring nuclear power plants.
Each requires the NRC to approve the transfer of the site’s reactor and spent-fuel storage licenses. For Indian Point, the owner and prospective buyer hope that will happen by May 31, 2021, Holtec said in its post-shutdown decommissioning activities report (PSDAR).
In the document, Holtec said subsidiary Holtec Decommissioning International (HDI) would begin active decommissioning (DECON) immediately upon taking possession of the property.
“The plan described in this PSDAR and the cost estimate provided in Enclosure 1 reflect HDI’s current decommissioning plan resulting in obtaining NRC issuance of a license amendment reducing the IP1, 2 & 3 licensed area to the [independent spent fuel storage installation] and permitting partial site release within 12 years of sale closure and license transfer,” the Dec. 19 document says. “While the cost estimate presented herein is based on a 12-year schedule for partial site release, HDI expects that the cost estimates would bound a project schedule supporting partial site release out to 15 years.”
Indian Point’s three reactors were commissioned between 1962 and 1976. Reactor Unit 1 was retired in 1974 and subsequently underwent limited decommissioning. Entergy plans to shut down Unit 2 by April 30, 2020, and Unit 3 by April 30, 2021. The joint Entergy-Holtec license transfer application was submitted to the NRC in November.
Post-shutdown decommissioning activities reports must be filed with the industry regulator within two years of a plant’s closure, providing schedule, cost, and other details of the anticipated site remediation process. The Indian Point PSDAR breaks down the decommissioning cost estimate for each reactor, divided by three main categories of cleanup: license termination, spent fuel management, and site restoration.
Within that framework, there will be a number of operations at each reactor, including: disassembly and decontamination of systems and infrastructure within the plant; extraction of any material containing asbestos; characterization of contamination and radiation levels throughout the property; dismantlement of the reactor pressure vessel and reactor vessel internals; and dismantlement of the used-fuel cooling pool and other systems.
Work on Unit 1 is estimated to cost $598.2 million: $485 million for license termination, $72.4 million for spent fuel management, and $40.8 million for site restoration. The total expense projection for Unit 2 is $701.8 million: $469.5 million for license termination, $188.3 million for spent fuel management, and $44.1 million for site restoration. Finally, decommissioning Unit 3 is estimated at just over $1 billion: $583.2 million for license termination, $371.4 million for spent fuel management, and $47.8 million for site restoration.
The work would be funded by the decommissioning trust for each reactor, which would pass to Holtec once the sale is complete. The funds have sufficient balances to complete license termination, Holtec said in the PSDAR.
The trust fund for Unit 1 would begin 2021 with a balance of $506.8 million, working down to $19.9 million by 2063, according to the PSDAR. The remaining balance would be delivered by $84.6 million in anticipated earnings for the fund over the decades.
The Unit 2 trust fund balance is projected at $590.9 million at the start of 2021, dwindling to $72.7 million by 2063. It is expected to earn $120.4 million over that time.
The Unit 3 trust would start 2021 with a balance of $814.7 million. The combination of annual spending and earnings ($256.9 million in total for the latter) would leave it with $170.6 million in 2063.
Some portion of the remaining funds in the trusts would be the central source of anticipated profit for Holtec.
Once decommissioning and site restoration is complete, Holtec would remain responsible for storage of the used fuel until an off-site location is identified for storage or disposal. The U.S. Energy Department is legally responsible for disposal of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants, but has not yet built the congressionally mandated geologic repository.
Holtec is separately seeking an NRC license for a facility in southeastern New Mexico that could more than 100,000 metric tons of spent fuel until final disposal is available. It hopes to open that site by the mid-2020s.
About 4,000 used fuel assemblies will eventually be held in an expanded dry-storage pad at Indian Point. Some are already in dry storage, with the rest in cooling pools or still in use in the two active reactors.
Holtec this year has already completed acquisitions of the retired Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey and the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts. The latter deal, also with Entergy, has faced significant resistance from the commonwealth in Massachusetts. Among the concerns is Holtec’s capacity to fully pay for decommissioning.
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office is still waiting to learn whether it will be allowed to intervene in the NRC license-transfer proceeding for Pilgrim. Agency staff in August approved the transfer of the plant’s reactor and spent-fuel licenses to Holtec, but the commission can reverse that decision. In the meantime, Massachusetts has filed petitions with both the NRC and a federal appeals court for a freeze on the license transfer. The commission denied the commonwealth’s request in December, while the court case is continuing.
There are also signs of resistance in New York state to the sale of Indian Point. In November, the environmental organization Riverkeeper urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reject the license-transfer application. It said Holtec is the “wrong choice” to decommission the facility. It noted that the company was at one point temporarily been barred from contracting with the federal Tennessee Valley Authority and has faced several problems in its job to transfer spent fuel into dry storage at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California.
SNC-Lavalin, the Canadian engineering firm that is partnering with Holtec in its decommissioning projects, has also been caught up in a bribery scandal in its home nation, Riverkeeper noted.
“Riverkeeper demands that the NRC deny the license transfer to Holtec and require that Entergy select a qualified company to take on the arduous tasks of decommissioning, site clean up and management of spent radioactive fuel, while keeping 20 million New Yorkers safe,” the organization’s president, Paul Gallay, said in a press release.
