After beginning physical decommissioning at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in 2019, NorthStar Group Services has nearly completed its work at the site, a company executive said recently.
In a Monday article from local Vermont publication Manchester Journal, Scott State, NorthStar executive chairman and chief nuclear officer, said the 10-year-long project is “99% done.” The company inherited a $602 million decommissioning trust fund for the project, in which almost all of it has been used up, State added.
State served as the company’s CEO since 2010 but transitioned to executive chairman and chief nuclear officer this July. Jeffrey Adix, previously NorthStar’s chief financial officer, was moved to the CEO role.
The company executive said there is around $8.5 million that remains that would be used to complete the remaining activities left at the site. Final work is expected to be completed in 2027, three years ahead of the original schedule of 2030 that was agreed upon in a memorandum of understanding, he added.
A NorthStar spokesperson confirmed with the Exchange Monitor Wednesday that the company is essentially done with the site and expects to complete the physical decommissioning by early 2027. Regulatory site release work will succeed the company’s work, he added.
Though Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning is nearing its end, the company said it still has to work with the state and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review the site prior to being released for possible re-use or re-industrialization.
Located in Vernon, Vt., Yankee Vermont, a single boiling water reactor with a generating capacity of 650 megawatts, began its operations in 1972. By 2014, Vermont Yankee ceased operations under then operator Entergy and was sold to NorthStar for decommissioning in early 2019.
In June, NorthStar made an agreement with a Houston-based energy developer named PowerTransitions to lease the remediated land to the power company.
While no plans for future use have been officially confirmed for the site yet, local news outlets reported that a data center, small modular reactor or battery storage are possible.