The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing decommissioning plans from the company set to take ownership of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant even as the state’s public service commission deliberates about the details of the plant’s sale, according to a recent agency filing.
EnergySolutions, which is slated to take over the license for Kewaunee Power Station from Dominion Energy, sent its decommissioning quality assurance application to NRC earlier this month, according to a letter from the agency dated Oct. 18. The commission will soon provide the company with “a preliminary review, hours and anticipate[d] completion date based upon our current review schedules,” the letter said.
If EnergySolutions application contains enough information, a detailed review of the quality assurance plan will follow, NRC said.
The commission is accepting public comments on the plant’s sale through Nov. 12, it said in a Federal Register Notice dated Oct. 12. Requests to intervene in the transaction must be filed Nov. 1, according to the notice.
As NRC is processing Kewaunee’s decommissioning plan, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (WPSC) is weighing whether to approve the plant’s sale. A spokesperson for WPSC told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing Oct. 15 that there’s no statutory deadline for the state commission’s review, but all of the parties involved are working on a draft schedule to govern future proceedings. At deadline Monday for Morning Briefing such a schedule had yet to be published on the docket.
Although EnergySolutions and Dominion agreed to the terms of Kewaunee’s sale back in May, they can’t move forward without WPSC approval.
Meanwhile, a second decommissioning company has also been granted permission to step in on the WPSC review. New York-based NorthStar, which has said it could dismantle Kewaunee at a lower price point than EnergySolutions, was allowed to intervene in proceedings Sep. 7.
With Kewaunee, EnergySolutions would have a total of four decommissioning projects under its belt. The Salt Lake City-based company is currently dismantling Three Mile Island Unit 2 in Pennsylvania, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California and Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun plant.
