Exelon at noon Monday officially retired its Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey ahead of what is anticipated to be an accelerated decommissioning.
The 650-megawatt boiling water reactor in Lacey Township became operational in December 1969, on the same day as the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station near Oswego, N.Y. Since Oyster Creek received its license first from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it was technically the oldest operating power reactor in the United States.
The next step will be extraction of fuel from the reactor for cooling in the used fuel pool. Workers will then ready the facility for dismantlement and decommissioning, Exelon said.
About 300 Oyster Creek employees are expected to stay with the site for decommissioning operations.
“Eventually these buildings will disappear, but the station’s legacy of safe, reliable operations, community involvement, and environmental stewardship will never fade,” said Exelon Oyster Creek Vice President Tim Moore in a Monday news release.
While the plant’s current NRC license does not expire until 2029, New Jersey officials and Exelon agreed in 2010 to shut down the facility by late 2019 so the company would not have to pay $800 million to install new cooling towers. Exelon later moved the date up to Monday to help shift around workers more efficiently.
Exelon originally planned to place the Oyster Creek reactor into SAFSTOR condition for several decades, with decommissioning and site restoration to be finished in 2080. Instead, it wants to sell the property to New Jersey-based energy technology company Holtec International, which will manage decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management in collaboration with Canadian engineering giant SNC-Lavalin.
Holtec and Exelon hope to secure NRC approval and to complete the sale next year. However, the NRC is mum on the speed for reviewing the requested license transfer. The two corporation are keeping the sales price confidential.
