Commercial Decommissioning

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/9/2015 The due date for bids for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station’s decommissioning general contract has been pushed back to January after a shake-up in potential bidders, RW Monitor learned this week. Southern California Edison, the site operator, had originally planned for a mid-October due date for bids, but […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/9/2015 Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) this week renewed her attacks on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s exemptions to the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station’s emergency preparedness requirements. Boxer criticized the commission during a committee NRC oversight hearing for reducing the regulations at the shuttered […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/9/2015 CHARLOTTE, N.C.— Industry and state officials this week called for changes to the 60-year time frame utilities are granted under the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s SAFSTOR reactor decommissioning option.  With a slew of utilities announcing the premature shutdown of some reactors in recent years, many in the cleanup community anticipated […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 9/25/2015 Should safety upgrades to the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Massachusetts prove too expensive, Entergy may opt to prematurely close the plant, an company official said this week.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this month downgraded the Pilgrim plant to Repetitive Degraded Cornerstone Column Four, the second to lowest […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 9/18/2015 Local officials from the county surrounding the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) demanded this week that the federal government make progress in removing the spent nuclear fuel from the reactor site. The San Diego County Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to issue a letter demanding the Department of […]

A Westinghouse-led consortium has won the contract to dismantle the reactor pressure vessel and its internals at the Philippsburg Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1 in Germany. The scope for this contract, which includes the planning, equipment manufacture and on-site segmentation of the reactor vessel internals and the reactor vessel, including peripheral structures, will be done […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied late last week a petition to look at the internal reactor pressure vessels at the Vermont Yankee and Kewaunee Power Stations for signs of possible cracking over time in the system, according to a posting in the Federal Register. The petition had requested that the NRC “conduct exigent and immediate […]

The state of Vermont last week filed a federal lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for authorizing Entergy to pull resources from its decommissioning trust fund for the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in order to pay for spent fuel management and other preliminary decommissioning costs. Vermont argued in its suit, filed in the Court […]

Entergy has chosen the Holtec International’s HI-STORM 100 dry storage system at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, Holtec announced yesterday. Vermont Yankee had already provided dry casks storage at the site for a first storage area, but a second concrete pad is needed for the additional fuel. Entergy has said in the past that […]

The California Public Utilities Commission approved late last week the use of close to $400 million from Southern California Edison’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station’s decommissioning trust fund. Those funds, according to local reports, will help cover the costs that incurred while shutting down the plant in the last two years, including employee severances and […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 7/24/2015 A federal claims judge last week awarded Entergy Nuclear Palisades $20.6 million for damages caused by the Department of Energy’s failure to dispose of spent nuclear fuel from a company power plant, as outlined in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). Entergy is seeking $36.4 million for the government’s […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 7/17/2015 AREVA announced this week it will provide engineering services for nuclear site decommissioning across the United Kingdom nuclear complex. Working with the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Shared Services Alliance, AREVA will work across twelve sites throughout the UK managed by decommissioning company Magnox Ltd., as well as the nuclear […]

AREVA will provide engineering services for nuclear site decommissioning across the United Kingdom nuclear complex, the company announced yesterday. Working with the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Shared Service Alliance, AREVA will provide work across twelve sites throughout the UK managed by the decommissioning company Magnox Ltd as well as the nuclear site at Dounreay in […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 7/10/2015 The Zion decommissioning completed the successful completion of the first large commercial reactor vessel segmentation in the United States, EnergySolutions announced this week. According to the company, the segmentation of the Unit 2 Reactor Vessel finished in late June, a month after the first of 17 segments of the […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 6/26/2015 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved exemptions late last week that enable Vermont Yankee to tap into its decommissioning trust fund to pay for spent fuel management costs. Entergy, the site operator, sought the exemption to help pay for activities related to moving spent fuel to dry cask storage, including […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 6/26/2015 Changes are needed in the nation’s management of spent nuclear fuel at reactor sites, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said late last week in a letter to Senate leaders. Healey wrote the letter in support of legislation introduced earlier this year by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved exemptions late last week that enable Vermont Yankee to tap into its decommissioning trust fund to pay for spent fuel management costs. Entergy, the site operator, sought the exemption to help pay for activities related to moving spent fuel to dry cask storage, including the construction of a second Independent […]

Changes are needed in the nation’s management of spent nuclear fuel at reactor sites, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said late last week in a letter to Senate leaders. Healey wrote a letter in support of legislation introduced earlier this year by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) that would require nuclear reactor […]

The Japanese government has adjusted the anticipated fuel removal dates at the Fukushima Daiichi site’s Units 1,2, and 3, the Tokyo Electric Power Company announced late last week. The new plans push the fuel removal of Units 1 and 2 until 2020, later than the originally scheduled Fiscal Year 2017 fuel removal target for Unit […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 6/12/2015 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station’s request to exempt the decommissioning facility from some emergency preparedness requirements, the NRC announced late last week. Southern California Edison, the plant operator, argued in its request that a decommissioning facility does not pose as much as […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 6/12/2015 The Sacramento Municipal Utility District filed this week in a federal court a third round of litigation against the Department of Energy for its failure to manage its spent nuclear fuel from the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant. The litigation is the latest in a long line of lawsuits […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station’s request to exempt the decommissioning facility from some emergency preparedness requirements, the NRC announced late last week. Southern California Edison, the plant operator, argued in its request that a decommissioning facility does not pose as large a threat as an operating one, and […]

Swedish energy company Vattenfall has partnered with German-based E.ON to decommission and dismantle their joint nuclear power plants, the two companies announced late last week. Following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, Germany moved to shut down all of its nuclear plants in an effort to avoid any future accidents. Eight nuclear reactors were permanently shut […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/29/2015 Six months after Entergy shut down operations at the Vermont Yankee Power Station, the utility continues to make preparations to enter the SAFESTOR state, Vermont Yankee spokesman Marty Cohn said this week. Vermont and Entergy came to an agreement at the end of 2013 that stipulated the utility will […]

Majority of Water Treated for Strontium Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/29/2015 The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced this week that almost all stored water at that Fukushima Daiichi cleanup site that was contaminated with radioactivity has been treated to remove strontium. Only three percent of water in storage still requires treatment for strontium, […]

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced yesterday that almost all stored water at the Fukushima Daiichi cleanup site that was contaminated with radioactivity has been treated to remove Strontium. Only three percent of water in storage still requires treatment for strontium, a major accomplishment for a cleanup that has been mired in water contamination […]

RW Monitor 4/10/2014 IN NRC The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comment on the updated Zion License Termination Plan, submitted by ZionSolutions in December, according to a posting in the Federal Register this week. The plan included a decommissioning cost estimate for the remaining work, totaling $389 million. “The overall remaining decommissioning cost (including […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comment on the updated Zion License Termination Plan, submitted by ZionSolutions in December, according to a posting in the Federal Registeryesterday. The plan includes a decommissioning cost estimate for the remaining work, totaling $389 million. “The overall remaining decommissioning cost (including scope risk contingency) was estimated to be […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 4/3/2015 While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had pushed for completion of its rulemaking by 2019, that timeline would be “extremely challenging,” according to an NRC staff SECY paper released this week. In the NRC’s Staff Related Memorandum that initiated the rulemaking, the Commission directed staff to complete the rulemaking by […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 4/3/2015 Westinghouse and HOCHTIEF Infrastructure GmbH, a German-based engineering company, announced late last week that they have entered into teaming agreement to offer integrated decommissioning, decontamination and remediation services for nuclear power plants in Germany. Following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, Germany moved to shut down all of its nuclear […]