By John Stang
Exelon and Holtec International aim by the end of this month to submit their application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to transfer the operating license for the soon-to-close Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey.
The two companies had initially hoped to submit the transfer application by Aug. 17. However, at an Aug. 15 meeting, the federal agency identified additional items it wanted to see in the document. Consequently, executives delayed the submittal to Aug. 31 to ensure they could provide that information on cost estimates, decommissioning schedules, and administrative matters, Holtec representatives said.
Oyster Creek, due to end operations in mid-September, is one of three nuclear power plants Holtec plans to buy once they cease power generation. In selling the single-reactor facility in Lacey Township, Chicago-based power company Exelon would free itself of responsibility for decommissioning and spent fuel management at the property.
The companies hope to obtain NRC approval for the license transfer by May 2019. The sale would then be sealed by the following month, Holtec and Exelon managers told NRC staffers during the Aug. 15 briefing.
Agency officials were noncommittal on how fast the NRC could process the application. By way of comparison, the NRC is expected next month to issue a ruling on a separate deal for the license transfer of the shuttered Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant from Entergy to NorthStar Group Services for decommissioning. That deal was first announced in November 2016.
Holtec subsidiary Holtec Decommissioning International would become the licensed operator of Oyster Creek. Another subsidiary, Oyster Creek Environmental Protection LLC, would become the licensed owner. Holtec plans to hire Comprehensive Decommissioning International to manage decommissioning and spent fuel storage. CDI is a new joint venture by Holtec and the Montreal-based engineering and construction company SNC-Lavalin.
Exelon had planned to place the Oyster Creek reactor into SAFSTOR, a mode of decommissioning under which final cleanup can be delayed for up to 60 years. Holtec instead plans to move up the planned completion of decommissioning from 2077 to 2027. Full off-site transfer of the plant’s used fuel would shift from 2024 under the original Exelon plan to 2021 under Holtec, according to a briefing document presented to the NRC. However, that would require a location for either interim storage or permanent disposal of U.S. reactor fuel, neither of which exist yet.
Based on March 2017 filings with the NRC, Oyster Creek had $888.5 million in its decommissioning trust as of Dec. 31, 2016. The NRC expected minimum decommissioning needs are $1.083 billion for Oyster Creek.
The 650-megawatt Oyster Creek reactor became operational on Dec. 1, 1969, along with the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station near Oswego, N.Y. Since Oyster Creek’s NRC license was granted first, it is technically the oldest operating power reactor in the United States. While its current NRC license does not expire until 2029, New Jersey officials and Exelon agreed in 2010 to shut down the plant by late 2019 so the company would not have to pay $800 million to install new cooling towers. Exelon moved the date up to mid-September to help shift around workers more efficiently.
Terms of the Oyster Creek sale are not being released. The sale price for Vermont Yankee is $1,000, with NorthStar keeping a portion of the site’s decommissioning trust fund once it completes cleanup.
In the future, Holtec aims to buy two additional nuclear power plants from Entergy: Pilgrim in Massachusetts and Palisades in Michigan.
Holtec and Entergy plan to file a license transfer request in the fourth quarter of 2018 for the Pilgrim site with the actual purchase expected to be closed in late 2019 following its closure, Joy Russell, Holtec vice president for corporate business development, said by email. Meanwhile, the Palisades license transfer request will likely be filed close to its shutdown date in spring 2022, and the purchase should be completed by the end of that year, she wrote.
