By John Stang
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office plans to formally raise concerns about decommissioning of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission decides whether to allow owner Entergy to transfer its license to Holtec International.
“The Attorney General intends … to intervene in the pending license transfer proceeding to articulate … concerns for evaluation by the Commission and the imposition of protective safeguards and other conditions with respect to any license transfer,” Assistant Attorney General Seth Schofield said in prepared remarks Tuesday to an NRC forum in Plymouth regarding the proposed license transfer.
The state and other stakeholders can petition for intervention and hearings in the license transfer application, making them parties to the NRC proceeding. The 20-day petition period will begin with a Federal Register notice, which will be published after the end of the current partial shutdown of the federal government.
The companies in November filed the license transfer application with the federal regulator. Entergy plans to close the 46-year-old single-reactor plant on Cape Cod by June 1 and by the end of the year sell the property to Holtec. The New Jersey energy technology company would then assume all responsibility for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management on the property. But this first requires approval from the NRC, which said it will need nine to 12 months to complete its review of the application.
“The NRC process permits intervention by any party; we understand and appreciate the process,“ Holtec spokeswoman Caitlin Marmion said by email.
This sale is intended to dramatically speed up decommissioning and reduce costs at Pilgrim. Holtec says decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management should cost $1.13 billion, down from Entergy’s prior estimate of $1.66 billion. The Pilgrim decommissioning trust, which would transfer to Holtec if the sale is completed, held $1.05 billion at the end of October.
Schofield said the decommissioning trust fund might need extra money as a cushion for unforeseen cost overruns. “Based on our preliminary review of the license transfer application and the revised post-shutdown decommissioning activities report, we have reason to believe that a trust fund shortfall could very well occur,” he said.
The attorney pointed to decommissioning costs increasing at the Connecticut Yankee power plant due to the discovery of strontium-90, at Maine Yankee due to highly contaminated groundwater, and at Yankee Rowe following discovery of PCB and groundwater contamination.
Marmion said Holtec’s analysis determined the trust will have sufficient funds to cover decommissioning. Per NRC rules, the company would be required to provide the agency with a yearly report on the status of the fund.
In his statement to the meeting, Schofield said “Holtec and its partner, SNC-Lavalin, have poor track records on other projects at other sites around the country, which amplifies the Commonwealth’s concerns about the potential for cost overruns, delays, and other issues that will both imperil public safety and our environment, while at the same time enhancing the risk of a trust fund short-fall that would make matters even worse.”
Holtec International expects to hire Comprehensive Decommissioning International to conduct the actual decommissioning at Pilgrim and at least two other nuclear power plants. That entity is a new joint venture by the company with Canadian engineering corporation SNC-Lavalin. Schofield said the complicated corporate set-up means there is “no guaranteed path” for Holtec International to cover cost overruns if the decommissioning trust fund is insufficient.
“If there are insufficient funds in the trust fund, Holtec would likely default on its obligations and likely leave the Commonwealth and its taxpayers with those obligations, both as the payor of last resort and the party responsible for protecting public safety and the environment for an indefinite period,” Schofield said.
Entergy declined to comment on the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office’s stance.
If Entergy remains owner, the site would be largely dormant until 2075, with decommissioning operations scheduled from that year through 2083 and site restoration wrapping up the following year, a. Holtec, meanwhile, would complete decommissioning by 2027. Full license termination would occur in 2063 — after the Department of Energy meets its legal requirement to remove the spent nuclear reactor fuel — and then site restoration in 2064, the companies project.
