The company in charge of dismantling a Wisconsin nuclear power plant will soon begin actually taking the facility apart, the company’s chief operating officer said this week.
The first phase of the decommissioning process, which will include activities such as site configuration and the first non-radioactive building demolition should begin at Kewaunee “in the months ahead,” Jeff Richardson, EnergySolutions chief operating officer, told RadWaste Monitor in an emailed statement Thursday.
EnergySolutions finalized its purchase of Kewaunee Power Station from utility Dominion Energy in July and is currently in “the initial phases of site preparation, team mobilization, and ongoing work planning processes” for decommissioning the Carlton, Wisc., facility, Richardson said.
EnergySolutions is also working through some required “associated regulatory and commercial transitions and authorizations” necessary for the company to take control of the site, Richardson said.
Kewaunee, which shut down in 2013, already has its spent fuel inventory packaged and stored at an on-site independent storage pad. Dominion and EnergySolutions agreed to Kewaunee’s terms of sale in 2021.
EnergySolutions is preparing to dismantle Kewaunee after a contentious state-level approval process that saw competing decommissioning company NorthStar challenge the transaction.
NorthStar, arguing before the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, said that Dominion should have used a competitive selection process when deciding on a decommissioning contractor for Kewaunee. The company also contended that it could dismantle the plant for around $500 million, much less than EnergySolutions’ quoted $724 million for the job — a claim that EnergySolutions said was “misleading.”
Richardson told RadWaste Monitor in June that he was “pretty happy” with the approval process, despite the interference.
EnergySolutions has four decommissioning projects under its belt including Kewaunee. The company is also dismantling California’s San Onofre plant, Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant in Nebraska and Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Unit 2.
