By John Stang
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking confirmation that no financial pitfalls await the transfer of the license for the retired Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant from Entergy to NorthStar Group Services.
In an April 5 request for additional information, the industry regulator said “NRC staff is unable to find that the funding mechanisms proposed by the Applicants are adequate to provide reasonable assurance that sufficient funds will be available for the decommissioning of VY, and for the management of spent fuel and [independent spent fuel storage installation] decommissioning at VY, such that NRC can approve the license transfer request.”
Entergy closed the single-reactor power plant in the town of Vernon in December 2014 and wants by the end of this year to sell the site to NorthStar for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management. New York City-based NorthStar says it can complete decommissioning as early as 2026 at a cost of about $811 million.
Both the NRC and the Vermont Public Utility Commission must approve the sale. Specifically, the federal agency would have to approve transfer of the plant’s operations and spent fuel storage licenses.
The April 5 letter, from NRC senior project manager Jack Parrott to Entergy Nuclear Operations President and CEO Christopher Bakken, is a follow-up to the agency’s request for additional information from last November. Broadly, the NRC said it needs more information demonstrating NorthStar has sufficient financing to carry out the cleanup work after taking over Vermont Yankee and is qualified to conduct the decommissioning.
Among the five direct requests, the NRC wants documentation of current or future litigation against the U.S. Department of Energy that would back up the companies’ claim that they can safely anticipate payments from the federal government to replenish the decommissioning trust fund for Vermont Yankee to pay for spent fuel management. The Energy Department has regularly been found liable for failing to meet its Jan. 31, 1998, congressionally mandated deadline to begin taking spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants for permanent disposal.
Parrott also noted that NRC staff was not consulted about, or provided with details of, the recent settlement agreement intended to persuade the Vermont Public Utility Commission to approve the sale.
On March 2, Entergy, NorthStar, three Vermont state agencies, and several New England community organizations signed a proposed settlement in which the site’s current and prospective owners offered financial assurances and site-remediation terms intended to resolve concerns about the deal. The set-aside money to cover any cost overruns in decommissioning is to be more than $200 million, according to the agreement.
The NRC wants to know what impact the terms and conditions of the proposed settlement would have on the financial and technical data provided by Entergy and NorthStar about the license transfers. It is also looking for the source of funding for a $55 million escrow fund that would backstop financing for decommissioning and site restoration.
The deadline for Entergy to answer the questions is May 5. The agency will evaluate Entergy’s answers before deciding whether it needs further information or proceed with the decision-making, said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell. Entergy expects to reply by the May 5 deadline, but did not want to comment further, said Joe Lynch, Entergy’s senior government affairs manager for decommissioning.
In a related matter, the NRC on March 30 approved Entergy’s plan for a trimmed-down emergency plan for the site after all of Vermont’s Yankee’s spent fuel is transferred to an on-site dry storage facility.
Among other changes, two positions — a technical coordinator and a radiation protection coordinator — would be merged into one position, according to NRC documents.
In a letter, the agency said the “highly improbable” worst-case scenario currently would release large quantities of fission products into the air. After the fuel transfer is complete, that scenario will disappear, the letter said, so less-stringent planning would be needed. The fuel transfer is expected to be done by the end of this year.
However, spent fuel transfer at Vermont Yankee stopped on March 10 after a broken bolt was found in a Holtec International spent fuel storage canister at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County, Calif. While Vermont Yankee uses a different type of Holtec canister, it halted the transfer works to examine all of its casks, A restart date has not yet been set.
