The company in charge of decommissioning nuclear power plants in Massachusetts and New Jersey claims it’s transferring both sites’ spent fuel inventories to dry storage at an “unprecedented” pace, according to a press release Tuesday.
At Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, spent fuel is being transferred to dry storage from the plant’s spent fuel pool at “an unprecedented rate in the industry,” Holtec International said in a Tuesday press release.
Pilgrim’s spent fuel inventory is being moved onto storage pads at the rate of two canisters per week, the Camden, N.J.-based nuclear services company said. Holtec said in the release that it expects Pilgrim to be completely defueled by November.
The company also took a victory lap on New Jersey’s Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, which finished defueling in May. Holtec successfully transferred 2,433 bundles of spent nuclear fuel into dry storage in under five months, Tuesday’s release said.
The Oyster Creek decommissioning process hasn’t been all smiles for Holtec, though. The company is currently in the middle of a labor dispute with a local union hall that claims Holtec violated a collective bargaining agreement by laying off 92 plant workers earlier this month.
Holtec currently has three decommissioning projects under its belt. In addition to Pilgrim and Oyster Creek, the company is currently dismantling New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, which shut down for good in April.
The company is also in the process of buying Michigan’s Big Rock Point and Palisades plants from Entergy, both of which it will decommission.
