Thirteen nuclear power reactors were permanently retired in 2019, including two in the United States, according to an industry performance report issued Tuesday by the World Nuclear Association.
“This is the joint second highest number of reactors shut down in a single year,” the report says. “However, for the majority of these reactors, 2019 was only the formal shutdown date, having ceased generation between 2011 and 2017.”
The single boiling-water reactor at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts shut down on May 31 of last year, after nearly 47 years of service. That was followed by the Three Mile Island Unit 1 pressurized-water reactor on Sept. 30, 2019, after over 45 years of operation.
The other shuttered reactors were in Germany, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, and Taiwan, the World Nuclear Performance Report 2020 states. That encompassed the four reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiini plant, which have not operated since the earthquake and tsunami that hit the nation in March 2011. The facilities in Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan fell victim to nuclear phase-outs by their respective governments.
Another three reactors have been retired this year, as of Aug. 21: two reactors at the Fessenheim facility in France and Unit 2 at the Indian Point Energy Center in upstate New York.
Energy technology company Holtec International last year acquired and began decommissioning the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. The plant had been owned by power company Entergy, which also hopes to sell Indian Point to Holtec.
Power company Exelon has said it will place the Three Mile Island reactor into SAFSTOR mode, under which final decommissioning can be put off for 60 years. Nuclear services firm EnergySolutions aims to buy and decommission Unit 2 at Three Mile Island, which never restarted after its March 1979 partial meltdown.
