The owner and prospective owner of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts on Friday filed the application and related paperwork for transferring the plant’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission license.
Entergy wants to sell the soon-to-close single-reactor facility to Holtec, which would then own its decommissioning trust fund and all responsibility for decommissioning, site restoration, and management of its spent fuel.
The 46-year-old Cape Cod reactor, the only operational nuclear power plant in the state, is scheduled to close by June 1, 2019. “The companies have asked the NRC to approve the application by May 31, 2019, to facilitate a timely transaction closing by the end of 2019, which will benefit the community, employees and other interested constituents,” according to a joint press release Friday.
Pilgrim is one of three nuclear plants Holtec has announced plans to buy for decommissioning. The others are Exelon’s newly retired Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey, for which the license transfer application has been filed with the NRC, and Entergy’s Palisades Power Plant in Michigan, which will proceed to sale closer to its anticipated closure in 2022.
In each case, the decommissioning would be carried out by Comprehensive Decommissioning International, a joint venture of Holtec and Canadian engineering company SNC-Lavalin.
New Jersey energy technology company Holtec believes it can wrap up dismantlement, decontamination, and remediation at Pilgrim no later than the close of 2027, “assuming timely regulatory approvals,” the press release says. “Holtec’s process achieves site restoration decades sooner than if Entergy retained the plant while meeting all applicable local, state and federal regulations. ”
The projected cost for decommissioning is $1.13 billion. Entergy’s decommissioning trust for the plant held $1.05 billion at the end of October.
All spent fuel at Pilgrim should be placed in dry storage within three years of shutdown, according to Holtec. It would stay there until the Department of Energy meets its legal requirement to remove the radioactive material from U.S. nuclear power generation sites. Holtec has also applied for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to build a consolidated interim spent fuel storage site in New Mexico.
Other paperwork filed with the NRC on Friday included the post-shutdown decommissioning activities report, decommissioning cost estimate, and an updated spent fuel management plan.
Oyster Creek
Meanwhile, the municipality that is home to the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station and two local advocacy organizations have requested public hearings and authorization to intervene on the proposed transfer of the power plant’s NRC license.
Among the concerns cited by Lacey Township, the Concerned Citizens of Lacey Coalition, and the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club are the viability of the fund that would pay for decommissioning the facility and corruption allegations against the Canadian company that would play a key role in the project.
The 49-year-old boiling-water reactor ended operations on Sept. 17. Holtec and Exelon submitted their license transfer application on Aug. 31 and hope for an NRC decision by May 1, 2019.
Stakeholders had until Nov. 8 to file their request for a hearing and intervention authorization that would enable them to formally make their case on the license transfer. All three petitioners expressed concerns about SNC-Lavalin’s background, which includes bribery charges filed by Canadian authorities in 2015.
“SNC has been charged in Canada with corruption, fraud and bribery. As they will be integral part of the decommissioning, there are major concerns by the Township and public at large of SNC’s involvement,” according to the Lacey Township filing “It should be a concern of the NRC’s as well. Decommissioning, as mentioned above, is a billion-dollar business. A company with a reputation such as SNC’s involvement in such an endeavor is troubling, at best.”
According to Canadian news reports, SNC-Lavalin’s legal troubles include:
- In 2015, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police charged the company with paying $36.5 million (CAD) in alleged bribes to government officials in Libya from 2001 to 2011, and defrauding Libyan organizations of almost $100 million. The firm has pleaded not guilty, but former CEO Pierre Duhaime lost his job in 2012, and was subsequently arrested, when funds turned up missing. On Oct. 10, Reuters reported that SNC-Lavalin approached the Canadian government for an agreement to defer prosecution on the bribery charge in return for a fine and cooperation, but the overture was rejected
- Canadian prosecutors have charged several SNC-Lavalin executives for allegedly paying a $22.5 million (CAD) bribe to obtain a $1.3 billion contract to build a “super hospital” at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal. To date, one former SNC-Lavalin executive has pleaded guilty to one charge of forging document in return to having 15 other charges dropped. A second former executive was acquitted, and three more are awaiting trial.
- In 2017, an Ontario judge threw out a case against two SNC-Lavalin executives and a Canadian-Bangladeshi businessman on a bribery case involving the corporation’s efforts to obtain a $50 million (CAD) contract to supervise construction of a bridge in Bangladesh. The judge ruled the RCMP obtained the wiretaps — which obtained allegedly crucial evidence — based on speculation and unverified gossip.
Separately, in its request for a public hearing, the government of Lacey Township noted that the NRC has estimated decommissioning Oyster Creek will cost $1.4 billion and Exelon had only $945 million in its decommissioning trust fund as of July. However, the companies’ license transfer application projects Holtec’s plan for accelerated decommissioning will cost $885 million: The New Jersey energy technology company believes it can largely wrap up work by 2027, while Exelon’s timeline stretched to about 2080.
Another concern cited by the three groups: the viability of the decommissioning trust. “This decommissioning trust fund must be safeguarded by the New Jersey (Board of Public Utilities) and the NRC so that is it used to safely complete decommissioning, and also ensure that any cost overruns do not fall to ratepayers,” Concerned Citizens said in its petition.
Lacey Township worried that the area’s residents could end up paying part of the bill if any shortfall in the decommissioning trust is not filled.
The three groups also addressed the complicated corporate set-up earmarked for Oyster Creek’s decommissioning.
“Holtec’s decision to bring in subcontractors raises questions of oversight and transparency of the facility. These subsidiaries and contractors are third party and not a BPU-regulated entity. This means there won’t be much transparency involved in the process. … With Holtec adding more third parties in the purchase and new technology that they will not disclose to the public brings questions about accountability, transparency, and funding that need to be answered,” the Concerned Citizens request said.
Holtec subsidiary Holtec Decommissioning International (HDI) has formed its own subsidiary —Oyster Creek Environmental Protection LLC — which would become the new owner of the Oyster Creek reactor site if and when the sale goes through.
Holtec would be the majority owner of Comprehensive Decommissioning International, which would be hired by Oyster Creek Environmental Protection to handle the decommissioning work at Oyster Creek.
Holtec would take ownership of the decommissioning trust as part of the sale. It likely would keep some portion of the balance that remains once decommissioning is complete.
The three intervention requests will be sent to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the quasi-judicial arm of the NRC, said agency spokesman Neil Sheehan. A panel of three administrative judges will review the request on whether the Lacey Township and Sierra Club have legal standing to intervene and whether they have submitted least one “admissible contention.” The panel will determine the deadlines, which could be spread across months, Sheehan said.
