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 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 expenses. According to the filing, the Vermont Yankee trust fund held $572 million at the end of February.
After 42 years of operation, Vermont Yankee closed in December 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 would take over decommissioning duties and assume ownership of the plant’s decommissioning trust fund. Both the NRC and Vermont Public Service Board are reviewing the proposed sale, which the companies hope to complete by the end of 2018.
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 operations to wrap up in 2018.
NorthStar broadly appears poised to capitalize on decommissioning at other nuclear plants. While it would work alone on Vermont Yankee, the company formed a joint venture, Accelerated Decommissioning Partners (ADP), with the U.S. branch of French multinational nuclear company AREVA, for future projects. The group has been trying to negotiate similar decommissioning deals for Entergy’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts and Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan.
AREVA spokesman Curtis Roberts in an email Thursday said there are a number of key drivers in the group’s ability to significantly decrease the cost and timeline for decommissioning.
“Primarily, the expertise of our team enables us to immediately begin the decommissioning process and avoid the original cost assumptions of maintaining the site for a decades-long SAFSTOR period,” he wrote. “Also, the earlier movement of all used fuel from the reactor to dry storage trims expenses and allows us to begin the decommissioning process earlier. Finally, since we will self-execute the decommissioning project, we avoid the added management complexities and costs of a contractor project team.”
Roberts said the partnership expects greater efficiency on future projects. The evaluation of decommissioning at Pilgrim and Palisades continues, he said, noting that the group has not yet reached an agreement to buy either plant
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan was asked Tuesday what this expedited decommissioning timeline means for work at other nuclear facilities.
“Each plant is unique, and we recognize that, and our regulations give the plant owners latitude as to how they want to go about cleaning up and dismantling the site, and our expectation is that it will be carried out as safely as possible,” he said.
