Parties to the state regulatory review for the planned sale of the retired Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant on Friday reported “substantial progress” in resolving two key points of dispute in the deal. That could open the door for the Vermont Public Utility Commission to reschedule hearings postponed from last month and continue its decision-making process.
The settlement talks involve plant owner Entergy, prospective buyer NorthStar Group Services, three state agencies, and other mostly nongovernmental entities authorized to intervene in the commission’s review of the ownership transfer announced in 2016.
The parties have declined to discuss the topics of the discussions, but a joint status update filed with the commission Friday focuses on two issues: a new financial assurance proposal from Entergy and NorthStar and site restoration of the Vermont Yankee property. The commission had requested the update on Feb. 2 after canceling a previously scheduled status conference.
“The Parties are pleased to report that they have made substantial progress toward finalizing an agreement that some or all of the Parties may join that addresses financial assurances that the Joint Petitioners would provide in connection with the transaction proposed in the Joint Petition and that establishes proposed site restoration standards that would apply to NorthStar’s decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station site,” according to the status update.
While the talks have gone on the commission last month postponed a second and final public hearing on the sale, along with two weeks of evidentiary hearings. In the status update, the parties asked the commission to schedule a status conference for Feb. 21. That presumably would be followed by rescheduling of the hearings.
Separately, on Thursday, the Vermont PUC issued an order that partly sustained and partly overruled objections made in 2017 by NorthStar and Entergy regarding prefiled testimony from representatives for two of the parties to the review: the New England Coalition and the Conservation Law Foundation.
The commission agreed with the companies’ contention that part of the prefiled testimony from NEC member Raymond Shadis was beyond his technical expertise and some was based in improper hearsay. But the commission upheld the validity of other parts of Shadis’ testimony. The commission upheld the admissibility of a larger portion of prefiled testimony from NEC member Arnold Gundersen.
The commission’s Thursday order also ruled a small part of the prefiled testimony of Michael Hill of the Conservation Law Foundation was inadmissible.
Vermont Yankee closed in December 2014 after more than four decades of operations. Entergy wants to sell the reactor site to NorthStar this year for $1,000. NorthStar would then decommission the plant and manage its spent fuel, keeping some portion of the site decommissioning trust fund when its work is done.
NorthStar says it can complete decommissioning as early as 2026 at a cost of just over $811 million, but other parties have expressed concern about its financial ability to meet that target.
The Vermont PUC and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must both approve the sale. The federal agency has said it expects to complete its review of the Vermont Yankee license transfer request in the first quarter of this year.
NRC Approves Spent Fuel Exemption
Meanwhile, Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff last week formally signed off on exemptions in operation of a spent fuel storage facility for Vermont Yankee.
The Feb. 2 safety evaluation report follows a Jan. 11 environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact by agency staff for those same exemptions requested by plant owner Entergy.
Those were the only reviews needed for Entergy to use the HI-STORM 100 dry storage casks, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Tuesday.
“The staff concludes that the proposed actions … [do] not affect the ability of the HI-STORM 100 cask system to meet the requirements of 10 CFR Part 72,” the federal regulation covering licensing for storage of spent nuclear fuel, according to the staff safety report.
Last year, Entergy asked for authorization to employ an “optional regionalized loading pattern” for the multipurpose canisters used in the HI-STORM 100 storage system from Holtec; load fuel cooled for no less than two years into the canister, rather than the generally required three-year cooling period; and ready a per-cell maximum average burnup limit of 65,000 megawatt days per metric ton of uranium.
Entergy “noted that the approval of the exemption request will facilitate a continuous loading campaign without interruption to wait for the fuel to meet the heat loading requirement for individual cell location,” the safety report says.
Staff also noted this could avoid potential higher personal exposure and human errors due to loss of experienced workers. Entergy indicated the exemptions would enable Vermont Yankee to complete the transfer of irradiated fuel by the end of 2018 instead of 2020, the report says.
Entergy is moving all of Vermont Yankee’s remaining used fuel into dry storage. The power company and Holtec International last year began the final spent fuel transfers to eventually fill 58 dry casks – a requirement for Entergy’s planned sale of Vermont Yankee to NorthStar Group Services.
