Holtec International said Monday it has completed the acquisition of the retired Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey for decommissioning.
The announcement was no surprise, after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month approved the transfer of the Lacey Township site’s reactor and spent-fuel storage licenses from then-owner Exelon to the New Jersey energy technology company.
This is the second deal of its type, following NorthStar Group Services’ purchase in January of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant from Entergy. In an increasingly popular business model, nuclear power providers are offloading responsibility for cleanup of their facilities to decommissioning companies. The new owner pays a nominal amount, then assumes all responsibility for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management at its new property. It also gets the decommissioning trust fund, the anticipated source of profit when the work is done.
Chicago-based power company Exelon closed Oyster Creek’s boiling-water reactor last September after nearly five decades of service. Holtec says it can transfer all of the site’s spent fuel into dry storage within two-and-a-half years and wrap up decommissioning within a decade.
It has estimated decommissioning will cost $885 million. The decommissioning trust for Oyster Creek was valued at $980 million as of June 2018.
Holtec is keeping on over 200 plant employees to support decommissioning. Additional personnel with special skill sets will join them as decontamination, disassembly, and dismantlement proceed, according to a Holtec press release.
Exelon in 2010 announced plans to close Oyster Creek this year, a decade before the expiration of its NRC operating license. In doing so, it cited the market challenges and regulatory framework that have been raised in explaining the recent or anticipated shutdowns of a number of nuclear power plants.
The company planned to place the reactor into SAFSTOR mode, under which final remediation could be delayed for up to 60 years. But, in July 2018, it said it would instead sell the facility to Holtec, which would proceed directly to decommissioning.
The plan had its skeptics: Both the Sierra Club of New Jersey and Lacey Township filed petitions with the NRC for hearings and intervention in the licensing proceeding. Among their concerns were the adequacy of the decommissioning trust to cover all costs and the role of a Canadian company in the project.
Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin is partnering with Holtec in Comprehensive Decommissioning International, which will carry out the actual work at Oyster Creek. The engineering multinational has been embroiled in a bribery scandal in its home nation.
Just day before approving the license transfer last month, the NRC’s four commission members officially rejected the hearing petitions from the Sierra Club and Lacey Township. They found the Sierra Club had not proved standing to intervene and that both entities had not submitted viable contentions against the license transfer.
This week, Lacey Township Mayor Tim McDonald was quoted in the Holtec press release welcoming the company into the community. Speaking to RadWaste Monitor on Tuesday, he directed his ire toward the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, saying the agency had ignored the community’s concerns about the deal.
“We’re not mad at Holtec,” he said. “They’ve got to do what they’ve got to do.”
Leaders in Lacey Township, on the Jersey Shore, can support the Holtec decommissioning approach as long as it is done safely, McDonald said. With the deal now done, they also look forward to being able to redevelop the site for other uses, he added.
Holtec subsidiary Oyster Creek Environmental Protection is the plant’s official owner, with Holtec Decommissioning International the decommissioning operator.
The emphasis in the first two years will be on monitoring Oyster Creek’s spent fuel as it cools in wet storage and is transferred to the plant’s spent fuel storage pad, Holtec spokesman Joe Delmar said by email. Other work will include reactor segmentation and additional site characterization to determine handling of bulk material as it is removed. That will pave the way for equipment dissection and eventually demolition of the facility.
The same joint venture and series of corporate affiliates would be brought to bear on at least three other nuclear plants Holtec plans to buy in coming years: the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, which closed on May 31; the Indian Point Energy Center in upstate New York, due for retirement by 2021; and the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan, which will operate until 2022.
Holtec and Pilgrim owner Entergy expect an NRC decision by the end of this month on their license transfer application. As with Oyster Creek, the sale would be completed within a matter of days afterward.
Holtec hopes eventually to send the used fuel from its nuclear plants to a storage site it plans to build in southeastern New Mexico. The license application for the facility is also undergoing NRC review, which is expected to be completed by mid-2021. While the project has support from local municipalities, opposition has developed from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) and other state and federal officials elected into office in the November 2018 midterms.
Until some form of off-site storage or disposal is available, a total of 4,504 used fuel assemblies will remain at Oyster Creek. Of that number, 2,430 are currently in the plant’s cooling pool.
