Commercial Decommissioning

The San Onofre Generating Station’s decommissioning Community Engagement Panel Chairman David Victor warned against federal regulations encroaching on community concerns in the decommissioning process during the RadWaste Summit in Summerlin, Nev., yesterday. Victor recommended that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission not require a Community Engagement Panel like the one Southern California Edison established for the SONGS […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 8/22/2014 Southern California Edison released its draft Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report (PSDAR) for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station earlier this month, outlining the 20-year, $4.4 billion decommissioning plan. The draft plan now goes to the Community Engagement Panel, the local stakeholder outreach group, for comments and review in an […]

Southern California Edison released its draft Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report (PSDAR) for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station late last week, outlining the 20-year, $4.4 billion decommissioning plan. The draft plan now goes to the Community Engagement Panel, the local stakeholder outreach group, for comments and review in an effort to include stakeholders in the […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 8/1/2014 The San Onofre Generating Nuclear Station’s decommissioning trust fund should adequately cover all the costs of decommissioning, Southern California Edison’s CEO Ted Craver said during the company’s second quarter earnings call this week. SCE conducted a site specific decommissioning estimate for the SONGS cleanup, and the company determined it […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 8/1/2014 Exelon will not make any decisions about closing some of its nuclear fleet until June 2015, the company announced during its second quarter earnings call this week. Exelon is currently conducting an analysis to see whether the plants in question—three of which are located in Illinois—can maintain a sustainable […]

The Nuclear Regulation Commission granted an exemption yesterday that would enable money from Zion’s decommissioning trust fund to go towards irradiated fuel management activities. ZionSolutions, the company responsible for the decommissioning of the plant, has been in the process of removing spent fuel from the pools to dry cask storage. This exemption would enable the […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 7/25/2014 A Illinois-based engineering firm has begun to make waves in Wisconsin by trying to purchase the Kewaunee Power Station in hopes of re-starting the closed plant. RGA Labs Inc. believes it can harness value from the plant by moving away from the traditional utility model of operation and turning […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 7/18/2014 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane joined industry stakeholders this week in calling for a rulemaking to better define the decommissioning process for commercial reactors during a Commission briefing on nuclear plant decommissioning. With the recent surge of plants entering premature shutdown, the NRC’s lack of regulations to show […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 7/18/2014 Mallinckrodt LLC is requesting that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reduce the financial assurance needed for the remaining work at the Columbium-Tantalum (C-T) decommissioning project in Hazelwood, Mo. The reduction would result in the company only needing financial assurance for $5,660,337, compared to the current $21,113,000 currently required. According to […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Cahir Allison Macfarlane indicated yesterday during a Commission briefing on nuclear plant decommissioning a willingness to re-look at the reasoning behind the SAFESTOR regulations in what could be a subtle beginning to changes behind the decommissioning process. Under the SAFESTOR regulation, reactor sites sit ‘moth-balled’ for a period up to 60 years […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane joined industry stakeholders yesterday in calling for a rulemaking to better define the decommissioning process for commercial reactors during a Commission briefing on nuclear plant decommissioning. With the recent surge of plants entering premature shutdown, the NRC’s lack of regulations to show the difference between an operating site and […]

Mallinckrodt LLC is requesting that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reduce the financial assurance needed for the remaining work at the Columbium-Tantalum (C-T) decommissioning project in Hazelwood, Mo. The reduction would result in the company only needing financial assurance for $5,660,337, compared to the current $21,113,000, almost four times less. According to Mallinckrodt, the remaining work […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 7/11/2014 Exelon does not “intend” to close any of its nuclear plants, Chief Strategy Officer Bill Von Hoene said during an interview with Platts Energy Week early this week. The utility announced earlier this year that it would be undertaking a strategic assessment of its nuclear fleet to determine if […]

The NRC Staff are recommending that Dominion’s exemption request for emergency preparedness regulations for the Kewaunee Power Station be granted, according to the Staff’s SECY letter to the Commission yesterday. Exemptions at decommissioning sites have made headlines recently after Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) criticized the NRC for granting too many at […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 6/27/2014 The shipments of class B and C waste from the Zion decommissioning project to Waste Control Specialists are back on track after a slight delay. EnergySolutions had originally planned to ship the waste back in March using one of its type-B casks under an exemption from the Nuclear Regulatory […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 6/27/2014 The Sacramento Municipal Utility District was awarded late last week $53.1 million by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit from the United States government for the Department of Energy’s failure to manage its spent nuclear fuel. The decision is the latest in a long line of payouts […]

The shipments of class B and C waste from the Zion decommissioning project to Waste Control Specialists are back on track after slight delay. EnergySolutions had originally planned to ship the waste back in March using one of its type-B casks under an exemption from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but an interruption occurred that called […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 6/13/2014 ORLANDO, Fla.—An effort by some lawmakers to restrict the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s ability to grant exemptions to safety and security requirements for nuclear power plants undergoing decommissioning was met with skepticism here this week by an NRC Commissioner and industry officials. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and […]

The Zion Nuclear Station decommissioning project should finish ahead of schedule and under budget, according to ZionSolutions General Manager John Sauger during a presentation at the EPRI International Low-Level Waste Conference in Orlando yesterday. The Zion project has suffered numerous delays and budget over-runs, so if Sauger’s prediction is correct, this would be a major […]

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) reiterated her desire for the expedited transfer of spent fuel to dry cask storage while chastising the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for granting safety and security regulation exemptions for reactors undergoing decommissioning, during a hearing on nuclear reactor decommissioning held yesterday. Boxer has been vocal about […]

A group of senators, including Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), introduced three pieces of legislation yesterday that would enhance and expand safety and security regulations at decommissioning reactor sites and the storage of spent nuclear fuel at nuclear plants. The senators, […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering granting an exemption to the Dominion Energy Kewaunee reactor enabling it to access the site’s decommissioning funds, according to a posting in the Federal Register late last week. Dominion needs to the funds to help pay for irradiated fuel management activities for the Kewaunee site that announced it shutdown last […]

A group of Senate lawmakers are calling on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to stop granting exemptions to security and emergency response requirements to shutdown reactor sites, according to a letter sent to NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane late last week.  The Senators, made up of Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), […]

The agreement between EnergySolutions and Waste Control Specialists to ship Class B and C low-level radioactive waste from the Zion decommissioning project appears to remain intact, but it is unclear when, or if, shipments are likely to occur, according to EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker. Previously, the agreement appeared to have fallen apart completely after EnergySolutions […]

South California Edison will host its first Community Engagement Panel meeting on March 25 to discuss the decommissioning process for its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. SCE announced earlier this year that it would form the CEP as a way to engage local stakeholders in the decommissioning process, which the company plans to submit sometime […]

Exelon warned that it may shut down some of its nuclear plants if the economic environment does not improve, according to Exelon President and CEO Christopher Crane during an investor’s call held late last week. Exelon, which operates 10 nuclear plants in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, said the competition from natural gas along with […]

The owners of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station announced late last week that they would decommission the SONGS facility as “expeditiously” as possible with the spent fuel pools being moved to dry-cask storage as quickly as possible. With the two-year anniversary of the discovery of a leak that forced the pre-mature shutdown of the […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/10/2014 The Tokyo Electric Power Company has announced it will form a new internal company responsible for the decommissioning of the Units 5 and 6 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The main objectives of creating the new organization, which will begin operations in April 2014, is to better […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/10/2014 Vermont and Entergy have come to an agreement after months of back and forth on a timeline for the decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee Power Station in Vernon, Vt. The agreement stipulates that Entergy will place the plant in SAFESTOR only until its decommissioning fund collects enough money to […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/2/2014 Southern California Edison is seeking to access the San Onofre Generating Station’s decommissioning funds to help off-set some of the expenses related to the planning for decommissioning necessary to move forward with the SONGS shutdown. For any funds to be withdrawn from the trust, SCE has to receive the […]