NorthStar Group Services could wrap up decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station by 2026.
That’s according to a new post-shutdown decommissioning activities report (PSDAR), which the New York company submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this month. The updated timeline is nearly 50 years earlier than Vermont Yankee owner Entergy had estimated in its original 2014 PSDAR, which calculated decommissioning would wrap up in 2073.
The total expense of decommissioning has also been significantly altered. Entergy in 2014 estimated the work would cost $1.24 billion, while the latest PSDAR estimates a cost of $811.5 million, plus $30.6 million in pre-closing costs. According to the filing, the Vermont Yankee trust fund held $572 million at the end of February 2017.
After 42 years of operation, Vermont Yankee closed in 2014. Entergy opted for SAFSTOR decommissioning, which allows six decades to complete the process, as radioactivity declines and the decommissioning trust fund accrues enough funding to cover the work.
In November, Entergy took a unique approach in offering the plant for sale to decommissioning specialist NorthStar, which took over decommissioning duties and assumed ownership of the plant’s decommissioning trust fund.
Another significant change in the new PSDAR is the pace of loading fuel from spent fuel pool into dry cask storage. Entergy had originally estimated completing the fuel transfer period in 2068 or 2069, but NorthStar has scheduled the activities to wrap up in 2018.
