The Board of Directors for the Omaha, Neb., Public Power District (OPPD) voted Thursday to expedite decommissioning of the shuttered Fort Calhoun Station nuclear power plant.
The new approach is expected to shave nearly four decades from the timeline for decommissioning, starting less than two years from now and wrapping up in 2028. It should also save hundreds of millions of dollars, according to an analysis presented to the OPPD board last month.
After a 10-minute discussion, the board unanimously approved a resolution that calls on OPPD management to begin negotiations with one or more contractors to carry out full decommissioning of the pressurized water reactor plant under the DECON approach. Any contracts must be evaluated by the OPPD general counsel. Management will also provide an update on the project at the board’s meeting in November, potentially with recommendations on contracting.
“We would look for other partners or vendors or contractors to support us in that event. Our intent would be to come back to the board with the approval of that negotiated arrangement, whether that be next month or December of whenever that would occur,” OPPD President and CEO Tim Burke told the board.
Burke mentioned “competitive analysis work” considered during a closed portion of Tuesday’s meeting of the board’s Nuclear Oversight Committee. An OPPD spokesman on Friday said “the confidential and proprietary nature of that work” prevented the release of any details.
The utility is considering three options for decommissioning: OPPD leading decommissioning with a partnering contractor; transferring the license to a contractor that would manage decommissioning and then return the license when it completes cleanup; and permanently transferring the license to another company, which would get the trust fund that pays for decommissioning as well as all responsibility for remediation of the property. Staff has already discarded an option for OPPD alone to manage decommissioning.
Board members and OPPD staff on Thursday did not suggest support for any one decommissioning option over the others. “[O]ur approach will be highly methodical, informed by our benchmarking efforts and industry best practices,” utility spokesman Cris Averett said by email. “All work will be driven by our commitment to our customer-owners, employees and communities.
Board Treasurer Craig Moody noted during the meeting that staff had suggested at Tuesday’s committee meeting that it be authorized to award a contract. However, board members determined they wanted to have final say, he said: “I think it’s our responsibility that we do take ownership of that.”
The utility shut down the 43-year-old reactor in October 2016, citing the financial challenges that have led to closure of a number of power plants in recent years. Fort Calhoun was placed into SAFSTOR mode, under which final decommissioning and site restoration for termination of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license can be delayed for up to 60 years.
That method was selected at the time to give OPPD time to grasp the scope and requirements involved in decommissioning as it prepared for final transfer of the plant’s spent fuel to dry storage, Tim Uehling, Fort Calhoun’s senior director of decommissioning, wrote in an Oct. 10 memo to the board.
The Omaha Public Power District projected at the time that decommissioning would be completed in 2066. Along with site restoration and spent fuel management, the total cleanup cost was estimated at $1.295 billion.
But in September, OPPD staff presented the board with an analysis emphasizing the cost savings of shifting quickly to DECON – as defined by the NRC, removal and disposal of radioactively contaminated structures, systems, and parts so a facility can be opened for unrestricted use shortly after ending operations. Decommissioning could conclude in 2028 at a cost of $670 million. The other expenses would remain fixed, for a total price tag of $1.083 billion.
Among the benefits of this revised plan, staff said, were a faster reduction of financial liability, earlier elimination of the hazard posed by the plant and its waste, heightened efficiency, and improving cost and schedule flexibility.
In September, OPPD Vice President for Energy Production and Nuclear Decommissioning Mary Fisher said the opportunity to accelerate cleanup was created by the quick work done by OPPD personnel in asbestos abatement, radioactive waste disposal, and filing of documentation with the NRC. That saved tens of millions of dollars, she told the board Thursday.
Decommissioning would begin after all of Fort Calhoun’s used reactor fuel is moved to dry storage in summer 2020, according to Uehling’s memo.
“In order to achieve a successful outcome, support from a vendor(s) with specialty skills, knowledge, and experience in nuclear plant decommission and radiological waste disposal capabilities, is considered critical,” Uehling wrote in his memo. “There are a limited number of vendors with this capability and the technologically complex and unique equipment required for the handling and disposal of radioactive materials.”
Some form of license transfer has proven increasingly popular in recent years for nuclear decommissioning.
Nuclear services firm EnergySolutions, of Salt Lake City, has temporarily taken the licenses for plants in Illinois and Wisconsin, and will return them later. The company has also partnered with engineering giant AECOM for decommissioning the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California, though in that case the owner utility retains the license.
New York City-based decommissioning specialist NorthStar Group Services this week received NRC approval to take power company Entergy’s licenses for the retired Vermont Yankee plant. Assuming it secures state regulatory approval as well, it hopes to own the site by the end of the year and complete decommissioning as early as 2026. NorthStar has also partnered with the U.S. branch of nuclear company Orano in Accelerated Decommissioning Partners to buy and remediate other facilities.
Holtec International, an energy technology firm based in Camden, N.J., in recent months has also announced plans to buy three closed or soon-to-close facilities for the same purpose: Exelon’s Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, which shut down last month; and Entergy’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, due to cease operations by June 1, 2019, and Palisades Power Plant in Michigan, which should stay open until 2022.
The companies were largely silent this week on whether they would pursue the contract at Fort Calhoun.
“Holtec is committed to the safe, rapid, and economic decommissioning of shuttered nuclear plants; therefore, Holtec, along with Comprehensive Decommissioning International (CDI) is open to providing products and services to any nuclear plant in the US,” Joy Russell, Holtec’s vice president for corporate business development, said by email Friday. Comprehensive Decomissioning International is a Holtec-SNC-Lavalin partnership that would act as general contractor for decommissioning projects.
