By John Stang
Entergy on Thursday retired reactor Unit 2 at the Indian Point Energy Center in upstate New York, leaving just one of the site’s three reactors online. Unit 3 is scheduled to close on April 30, 2021.
“Over the last 45 years, thousands of dedicated professionals have operated Unit 2 at Indian Point – safely, securely and reliably,” said Chris Bakken, Entergy Nuclear chief nuclear officer, in a press release. “We owe each of them our thanks for a job well done and for their commitment to the highest standards of professionalism.”
The pressurized water reactor received its federal operating license in September 1973, just over two years before Unit 3 in December 1975. In-between those two milestones, Indian Point Unit 1 shut down permanently after 12 years of service.
Indian Point is 24 miles from New York City, in the village of Buchanan within the Hudson River Valley.
Entergy is closing the two reactors several years before expiration of their Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses. Unit 2’s license extends to April 30, 2024, and Unit 3’s to April 30, 2025. In 2017, the New Orleans-based power company announced the retirements as part of a deal with New York state, citing declining revenue, increased operating costs, and struggles to compete with the lower-cost natural gas industry.
“It is disappointing to see Indian Point Unit 2 shut down four years prior to its operating license expiring. The power plant currently delivers 25% of New York City’s power,” Rita Baranwal, assistant secretary of energy for nuclear energy, said in a statement Thursday. “The region will not only be losing 1,000 megawatts of clean and reliable power this year, but millions of dollars in local tax revenues and hundreds of high-paying jobs when Unit 3 shuts down next April. Our nation’s reactors, which can run up to 80 years, should be allowed to safely run out their lifespan.”
Entergy is in the process of selling the site to New Jersey energy technology company Holtec International, which would manage decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management for all three reactors. The sale’s completion is targeted for roughly mid-2021, after Unit 3 is closed.
The companies in November 2019 filed their application for transfer of Indian Point’s reactor and spent fuel licenses from Entergy to Holtec. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to finish its evaluation of the license transfer application by the end of this year.
The New York state Attorney General’s Office and three advocacy groups in February filed petitions for hearings with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the proposed license transfers for Indian Point. In broad strokes, the petitions cover concerns about whether Holtec International would be able to fully fund decommissioning and whether the project’s corporate family tree would shield the new owner from responsibility if the cleanup money falls short.
The NRC does not have a set timeline to rule on the petitions and to hold hearings, if needed.
Entergy did not respond this week to questions from RadWaste Monitor regarding activities planned at Unit 2 ahead of the transfer of ownership, including the schedule for defueling the reactor and any preliminary decommissioning activities.
There are about 900 employees at Indian Point. Roughly 90 of them have indicated they will leave Entergy or transfer to another location with Unit 2’s shutdown. Upward of 350 will stay on after the site’s full closure to perform decommissioning, under its new ownership.
While no target dates have yet been set, Indian Point will have to obtain NRC certificates for cessation of operations and for permanent removal of the reactors’ spent nuclear fuel.
Decommissioning the three reactors is projected to cost $2.3 billion. Holtec says it can complete the job in 15 years. The work would include removing equipment; dismantling the huge pieces; tearing down the reactor domes and other buildings; removing debris; moving fuel to dry storage; and restoring the site so most, if not all, is a green field.
In a post-shutdown decommissioning activities report filed with the NRC in December, Holtec said decommissioning and site restoration would be conducted from 2024 to 2036, at which time licensing would be reduced to solely 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 storage site Holtec wants to build in southeastern New Mexico.
Roughly 4,000 used fuel assemblies in a predicted 125 casks 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. Holtec aims to have all the fuel in dry storage by 2024.
A prior PSDAR from Entergy called for Units 1, 2, and 3 to be decommissioned in sequence through 2077, at which time their NRC licenses would be terminated.
On the site’s decommissioning trust funds, Reactor Unit 1 has accumulated $471 million of a targeted $598 million; Unit 2 has collected $598 million of a targeted $702 million; and Unit 3 has $780 million out of a targeted $1 billion. The latest decommissioning trust fund figures are dated to the end of 2018.
Established in 1986, Holtec has moved aggressively in recent years to buy shuttered nuclear power plants for decommissioning. In 2019, it acquired and began decommissioning Entergy’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts and Exelon’s Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey. It hopes to acquire Entergy’s Palisades Power Plant in Michigan, which is scheduled to close in 2022.
Terms of the sales have not been released. But in a similar deal for Entergy’s Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, buyer NorthStar Group Services paid a nominal $1,000 fee and took possession of the reactor’s decommissioning trust. That is expected to be the primary source of profit once decommissioning is completed.
