Pennsylvania’s top environmental official on Monday expressed continued concerns about the adequacy of funding to complete decommissioning of the partially melted-down reactor Unit 2 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Patrick McDonnell submitted a new letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as it considers transferring the license for TMI-2 from owner GPU Nuclear to a subsidiary of nuclear services firm EnergySolutions.
Approval is necessary for GPU Nuclear to sell the reactor to TMI-2 Solutions, which would then assume all responsibility for decommissioning.
“After review of the Application, it is unclear to the Department where the ultimate responsibility and liability lie should TMI-2 Solutions fail to have enough funds set aside for decommissioning and associated activities and then cease to exist,” McDonnell wrote.
McDonnell raised concerns about cleanup funding and other issues at the plant in an April 6 letter to NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki. While the agency said it could not respond directly to his letter, he did receive a response on April 13 from GPU Nuclear President Gregory Halnon and EnergySolutions President John Sauger.
An attachment to the executives’ letter acknowledges that the current value of the decommissioning trust for Unit 2, $892 million, is well under the nearly $1.1 billion estimated price tag for the cleanup job.
However, “it is important to recognize that the cost estimate represents the cost to decommission the facility over many years in the future,” it says. “Over time, even presuming a conservative 2% estimate of fund growth above inflation, the current 2019 [nuclear decommissioning trust can satisfy the roughly $1.05 billion decommissioning cost estimate.”
EnergySolutions is also committing a funding backstop of up to $100 million for decommissioning, according to the companies.
McDonnell on Monday had questions about the terminology cited by GPU Nuclear and EnergySolutions: “It is unclear what the ‘financial assurance instruments valued at up to $100 Million’ are and what the phrase ‘up to’ means.”
About three months after beginning operations, Unit 2 partially melted down in March 1979. It never started up again. The two companies hope to complete the sale in the second half of 2020. The schedule for decommissioning Unit 2 has not been made public.
