Decommissioning trust funds for 119 operational and retired nuclear power reactors together held $64.7 billion at the end of 2018, according to the latest update from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Agency staff on Dec. 31 provided the NRC commissioners with its review of the 2019 decommissioning funding status reports from nuclear utilities. The report, plus accompanying funding tables, were posted to the agency website last week.
Federal regulations require nuclear power plant operators to provide regular reports on the trust funds that will pay for cleanup of their properties once operations cease. Decommissioning funding status reports are due on a biannual basis from operators of active facilities, and annually for plants that are due to close within five years or have shifted into decommissioning.
Licensees are legally required to show “reasonable assurance” that they can pay for decommissioning. “Shortfalls should, therefore, be corrected in a timely manner,” the NRC review says. “The staff notes that while the decommissioning funding amounts certified by licensees … do not represent the actual cost of plant decommissioning, they do provide assurances that licensees have available the bulk of the funds to safety decommission the facility.”
At the Dec. 31, 2018, cutoff dates for the reports, there was a total of $56.5 billion spread across decommissioning trusts for 98 operational power reactors. Trusts for 21 reactors in decommissioning held another $8.2 billion.
Staff identified shortfalls in decommissioning funding assurance at several plants, but said those issues were resolved. The sites were: Exelon Generation’s Unit 1 at the Clinton Power Station in Clinton, Ill., and its retired Unit 1 at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Delta, Pa.; and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co.’s Beaver Valley Power Station, Unit 1, in Shippingport, Pa., and Perry Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1, in Perry, Ohio.
