The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has requested additional data from power provider Entergy regarding the application to transfer the operations and spent fuel storage licenses for its Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to planned facility buyer NorthStar Group Services.
Entergy closed Vermont Yankee in 2014, and in February joined the New York City-based nuclear decommissioning specialist in filing the application with the federal regulator, with the aim of completing the sale at the end of 2018. NorthStar would then own the plant and its independent spent fuel storage facility, taking charge of decommissioning Vermont Yankee and managing more than 2,000 used fuel assemblies in dry storage until the U.S. Energy Department takes the waste off its hands.
In an Oct. 12 letter to Entergy Nuclear Operations President and CEO Christopher Bakken, posted Nov. 3 on the NRC website, Jack Parrott, senior project manager for the agency’s Reactor Decommissioning Branch, submitted five requests for additional information covering financial and technical issues with the license application.
The NRC wants:
- To know whether Entergy and NorthStar would request an exemption from federal law in order to use funds from Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning trust for spent fuel management purposes, or whether they believe Entergy’s current exemption allowing such use would apply to the new owner.
- More information regarding the calculations showing that $125 million in financial assistance that NorthStar would provide to subsidiary NorthStar Vermont Yankee would be sufficient to cover spent fuel management until DOE’s anticipated acquisition of the material in 2052.
- An explanation regarding the “principal characteristics of the parental financial Support Agreement” included in the license application, along with “the rationale for using the parental financial Support Agreement in lieu of a parent company guarantee or some other financial assurance mechanism as a means for decommissioning financial assurance.”
- More information on the “technical qualifications” of license transferee NorthStar, including resumes for key personnel including quality assurance manager, health and safety manager, and waste manager. Also, the identity of the site manager who would oversee daily operations at Vermont Yankee.
- A description of potential revisions to Entergy’s decommissioning organizational chart for the facility should the license transfer application be approved, including any functions that would not be sustained. Also, details on where decommissioning support contractors AREVA, Burns & McDonnell, and Waste Control Specialists would fit in the organization.
NRC staff wanted the responses to the requests for additional information within 30 days of the date of the letter. “We have no indication from Entergy/NorthStar at this point that it won’t be able to meet that deadline,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said by email Monday.
While the companies hoped the NRC would wrap up its review this year, the agency expects that to happen in the first quarter of 2018, Sheehan said. The NRC also has not yet ruled on a request for a hearing on the license transfers from the state of Vermont and the nongovernmental New England Coalition.
In a statement to RadWaste Monitor, Michael Twomey, vice president for external affairs at Entergy Wholesale Commodities, said: “Entergy is reviewing the NRC’s requests for additional information received today pertaining to the Vermont Yankee license transfer application and together with NorthStar will respond in a timely manner. Entergy has no comment on the timing of the NRC’s review.”
The Vermont Public Utility Commission must also approve the sale. Its review will last at least until early 2018, according to an updated schedule issued in July.
NorthStar would pay a nominal $1,000 for the plant. It says it can complete decommissioning at a cost of $811 million as early as 2026, which would be decades earlier than Entergy had planned. Skeptics in Vermont question the company’s ability to carry out it plans and the means by which it would do so.
Entergy has about $575 million in its decommissioning trust for Vermont Yankee, which would be turned over to NorthStar once the sale is complete. It would grow over time thanks to interest, and the plant owner would also secure funding for decommissioning from DOE payments for failing to meet its legal mandate to dispose of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear reactors.
NorthStar would keep a portion of what remains of the decommissioning trust once the cleanup is complete.
The Vermont Yankee sale is part of Entergy’s plan to fully exit the nuclear power business, with closure and potential sales of its three remaining operating plants by 2022.
