Pennsylvania’s top environmental official this week expressed deep reservations about plans for the expedited decommissioning of reactor Unit 2 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
The reactor famously operated for only a few months before partially melting down in March 1979. It never resumed power production.
“The TMI Unit 2 nuclear accident resulted in damage to the majority of the reactor core, released millions of curies of radioactive noble gases into the environs, and grossly contaminated the interiors of the containment and auxiliary buildings,” Patrick McDonnell, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, wrote in a letter dated April 6 to NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki. “Because of this, we understand there are very high radiation areas within TMI Unit 2 that present a grave risk to personnel that enter.”
Nuclear services firm EnergySolutions, of Salt Lake City, plans to buy the reactor from GPU Nuclear Corp., a subsidiary of Ohio power company FirstEnergy Corp. The companies signed their contract in October, and have applied for transfer of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for the reactor. The deal also requires approval from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.
Terms of the sale have not been made public. Deals of this type, which have become increasingly popular in the nuclear industry, generally involve a nominal price tag. The new owner takes possession of a reactor decommissioning trust fund worth hundreds of millions of dollars, along with all responsibility for cleanup and site management.
Pending state and federal regulatory approval, EnergySolutions subsidiary TMI-2 Solutions intends by the end of 2020 to assume ownership of the facility that stands on a plot of land in the middle of the Susquehanna River near the state capital of Harrisburg.
McDonnell said his agency’s previous understanding was that Unit 2 would be decommissioned only after the Exelon-owned reactor Unit 1, which closed in September 2019 and is expected to remain in “safe storage” for decades before final cleanup. That no longer appears to be the case, raising a number of questions, he wrote. For one, he said, decommissioning Unit 2 has been estimated to cost $1.2 billion, but the trust fund to pay for the work holds $800 million. (The fund is now up to $899 million, according to FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young.)
McDonnell’s timeline appears questionable. Apart from some initial work, Exelon has said its primary decommissioning operations would begin in the 2070s and conclude in 2079. FirstEnergy had previously planned to conclude dismantling Unit 2 by 2053.
“The decommissioning work will likely now take place earlier to align with the early closure of TMI-1,” Young said by email Thursday. “I do not have a current schedule for those activities.”
McDonnell asked the NRC to answer a list of questions regarding environmental and safety impacts from decommissioning the reactor, the cost and financial responsibility for the work, and management of radioactive waste.
Among the questions:
- What measures will the NRC direct to ensure detection of any release of radiological materials during decommissioning, and to prevent any contamination of the Susquehanna River?
- What funding source would bridge the gap between the amount in the decommissioning trust and the estimated cost for the work?
- What “legal and financial assurances” would be established to manage the potential for the cleanup cost to exceed $1.2 billion?
- Is there commitment from the Department of Energy to dispose of the reactor vessel, which still holds nuclear fuel that was in use at the time of the accident? (The Energy Department has already taken custody of most used fuel from the reactor, which is in storage at its Idaho National Laboratory.)
“We will carefully consider the concerns raised in the Pennsylvania DEP letter and provide a response in a timely manner,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said by email Tuesday.
FirstEnergy and EnergySolutions intend to address the concerns raised by McDonnell as they advance through the regulatory process, Young said. She noted that the decommissioning trust will continue to grow over time and would be spent over a period of “many years.”
