The Board of Directors for the Omaha, Neb., Public Power District indicated Monday it is continuing to seek a vendor to decommission the retired Fort Calhoun Station nuclear power plant.
“We’re still working on our decommissioning methodologies and we have another presentation for the Board of Directors in a closed session,” Mary Fisher, OPPD vice president for energy production and nuclear decommissioning, told the board’s Nuclear Oversight Committee on Tuesday.
Board members later went into closed session to discuss several matters, including “competitively sensitive planning at Fort Calhoun Station.”
Additional information was not immediately available.
Fort Calhoun’s pressurized water reactor ceased power production in October 2016 after 43 years of service. The utility put the plant into SAFSTOR mode, under which the reactor is monitored but final decommissioning does not have to be completed for up to 60 years. However, the board voted last month to move the reactor quickly into decommissioning – an approach an OPPD analysis said could wrap up by 2028 and cut more than $200 million off the previous $1.295 billion cost projection for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management.
As of last month, OPPD was considering three decommissioning options: partnering with a separate contractor for the work; turning over the license to a contractor that would handle decommissioning and then return the license; or permanently transferring the license to a different company, which would assume both the trust fund to pay for cleanup and all responsibility for the property.
An OPPD spokesman on Tuesday did not respond to a query regarding the status of decommissioning planning.
A full board meeting is scheduled for Thursday.