Members of the public should get an opportunity next month to weigh in on the sale of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant to a decommissioning company, the state’s public service panel said this week.
It’s the next major public forum for a sale that was shaping up to be an open-and-shut deal until New York-based decommissioning company NorthStar muscled its way into the proceedings. WPSC permitted NorthStar to intervene in its review of the Kewaunee sale in September, after the company argued that it could decommission the Carlton, Wisc., plant for around $500 million — a significantly lower price point than EnergySolutions’ projected $724 million.
Now, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (WPSC) is scheduled to hold a public hearing March 2 on Kewaunee Power Station’s proposed sale to EnergySolutions from Dominion Energy, according to a notice published by the commission Wednesday. The hearing will begin at 10:00 a.m. Central time, the notice said. WPSC will accept public comments during two separate sessions March 3, at 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. Central time.
WPSC must review and approve Kewaunee’s sale, which EnergySolutions and Dominion agreed to in May 2021, before the transaction can be finalized. The commission has said that there’s no timeline for such an approval.
During a Nov. 3 prehearing conference, lawyers for NorthStar requested that the state commission expand its review beyond the “very narrow view” of EnergySolutions’ financial ability to operate Kewaunee and that the commission also ensure that the plant’s roughly $750 million decommissioning trust fund would be “spent prudently.”
The applicants argued during the conference that NorthStar was attempting to make a “public interest” issue out of the sale, and that the company was only participating for “its own competitive interest.” The only criteria that WPSC should review is “whether the new owner has sufficient financial resources to operate the plant,” said Bradley Jackson, lawyer for utility Wisconsin Public Service Corporation.
Despite that, WPSC Administrative Law Judge Michael Newmark sided with NorthStar during the hearing, saying that the commission will “need a reason to make the decision in the end [and] providing that reason … is going to be required and useful for the ultimate decision.”
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is also reviewing the Kewaunee sale. The agency accepted comments on the proposed license transfer until Nov. 12. As of Wednesday afternoon, NRC had yet to make a final decision on the transaction.
If EnergySolutions manages to secure Kewaunee’s license, it 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.
