Vermont nuclear decommissioning may be a model for other States
State Involvement Key for Decommissioning Old Nuclear Plants, Nasdaq, By Oilprice.com, January 03, 2014 The beginning of 2014 marks the final year of operation for the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, ending a contentious battle between the state and the plant’s owner. On December 23, Entergy (ETR) and the state of Vermont announced a deal that will end all litigation surrounding the plant’s operation, shut down the plant at the end of 2014, and lead to a compressed schedule to study decommissioning.
The conflict started when Entergy sought a 20-year license renewal to keep the Yankee plant operating into the 2030’s. Vermont, however, requires approval from the state legislature for license renewal, the only state in the country that does so. Yet Entergy sued the state, arguing that authority over nuclear license renewals rests only with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and that federal authority trumps state authority.
Although a series of court decisions affirmed Entergy’s position, the company ultimately decided to close the plant anyway, largely due the inability to compete with cheap natural gas. In August 2013 it announced that it would cease operations at the end of 2014…….
The deal to close Vermont Yankee does offer a useful model for decommissioning as it tackles some of the key areas of conflict between the industry and the areas in which it operates. Entergy agreed to complete adecommissioning study in one year, much quicker than the four years allotted for by the NRC. It also agreed to move nuclear waste from onsite pool storage into dry casks within seven years, even though the NRC allows the company to keep waste in pools for sixty years. The deal also calls for Entergy to pay millions of dollars to the state for economic development for the county in which Vermont Yankee is located.
One of the interesting features of the deal is that it allowed for active involvement of the state in shaping the path towards decommissioning and waste disposal, which is often absent elsewhere. To be sure, huge question marks remain, including how the state will make up for the shortfall in electricity generation, and where funding for decommissioning will come from. But, the U.S. has thus far failed to implement a strategy to decommission old nuclear power plants. And with most of the 100 or so nuclear power plants obtaining 20-year license renewals, that conversation has been pushed off into the future. The Vermont Yankee deal, while incomplete, does offer lessons for decommissioning. http://www.nasdaq.com/article/state-involvement-key-for-decommissioning-old-nuclear-plants-cm315680#ixzz2pRYlLxGz
Decommissioning problems with Vermont Yankee Nuclear reactor
RECAP 2013: VERMONT YANKEE, RENEWABLE ENERGY CAPS AND WIND PROJECTS STIR CONTROVERSY HTTP://VTDIGGER.ORG/2013/12/29/RECAP-2013-VERMONT-YANKEE-RENEWABLE-ENERGY-CAPS-WIND-PROJECTS-STIR-CONTROVERSY/ JOHN HERRICK DEC. 29, 2013 VERMONT YANKEE, THE STATE’S ONLY NUCLEAR REACTOR, DOMINATED HEADLINES THIS YEAR.
Entergy Corp., the company that runs the reactor, is plagued by financial problems, and operating the Vermont plant was an expense it could no longer afford. In late August, Entergy announced it would close the plant, ironically just days after the Louisiana corporation won a long-running court battle with the state over the right continue operating the Vernon facility for an additional 20 years.
Entergy amended its application with the Public Service Board and is now seeking a one year license to operate the plant through the end of 2014, when Vermont Yankee is slated to close.
The board held off from ruling on the relicensure case at the request of the Shumlin administration while state officials settled differences over decommissioning, the economic impact of the plant closure, hot water discharges into the Connecticut River and a generation tax.
Many of those issues were resolved when the state and Entergy reached an agreement last week that sets a decommissioning completion date of 10 to 15 years, decades sooner than required by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 60-year timeframe. Entergy also agreed to pay millions of dollars in payments to the state in tax revenues and in support for regional economic development efforts. In addition, the agreement settled all pending federal litigation.
The settlement is contingent on the Public Service Board approving the plant’s certificate of public good before March 31, 2014.
There are other outstanding issues that have yet to be resolved. The two parties disagree over whether Entergy’s Decommissioning Trust Fund is sufficient to support decommissioning. In addition, the state and the company do not yet have a common understanding of how the site will be restored. Entergy must file a decommissioning plan with the NRC after the plant is closed.
The state is concerned that the 42-year old merchant plant’s worsening financial foundation could compromise the operational safety of the facility in the near term and the decommissioning process over the long haul.
It is unclear what the plant will do with 530 tons of radioactive waste stored on the premises. Vermont Yankee has 3,879 fuel rod assemblies submerged in a spent fuel pool that was originally designed to hold about 350. Spent fuel rods must be kept under water to prevent them from igniting, but once they are cooled, they can be transferred into long-term cement “dry casks.” Vermont Yankee will need 58 casks in all. Right now, the facility has 13. Each cask costs about $1 million.
The agreement requires that all the spent nuclear fuel stored on site pools be placed in dry cask storage, which Gov. Peter Shumlin said could take up to seven years.
Entergy’s decision to close Vermont Yankee was the result of declining wholesale market prices and competition with natural gas. Merchant plants are investor-funded; early this year a Swiss financial services firm UBS Securities downgraded Entergy Corp.’s stock and urged investors to sell.
The downgrade came on the heels of a report by UBS Securities that found Entergy “is unlikely to generate any meaningful cash” from wholesale commodities in 2013 and 2014.
Entergy’s nuclear fleet includes the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, Vermont Yankee in Vermont, Indian Point Energy Center and the James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant in New York, and the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan.
New agreement on decommissioning Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station
Vermont, Entergy Announce Deal On Nuclear Power Plant Decommissioning http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/12/23/vermont-entergy-announce-deal-on-nuclear-power-plant-decommissioning/ December 23, 2013 MONTPELIER, Vt. (CBS) — The state of Vermont and Entergy have announced a deal on decommissioning the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station.
Gov. Peter Shumlin, Attorney General Bill Sorrell and Bill Mohl, president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities, announced a settlement agreement Monday between the state and the owner and operator of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee LLC and Entergy Nuclear Operations Inc., the company said in a prepared statement.
The deal brings more certainty to the plant’s operation through next year and its transition — including commitments related to economic development, timely decommissioning and site restoration, the company reported. The pact also helps set a path for a constructive and transparent working relationship between Entergy and the state as they continue to work on long-term issues related to the decommissioning of the nuclear power plant. Continue reading
Controversial entombment of Illinois nuclear power plant
state regulators will not have authority to question how the dismantling is performed or EnergySolutions’ spending decisions.
A group of local citizens has filed suit over the financial handling of the project, claiming there are no safeguards to ensure that EnergySolutions isn’t wasting ratepayer money.
How Zion’s nuclear waste will be entombed on site http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-1215-zion-fuel-20131215,0,7912496.story Third-party EnergySolutions to embark on unprecedented, yearlong process By Julie Wernau, Chicago Tribune reporter December 15, 2013
In January, EnergySolutions will begin the most crucial part of its 10-year dismantling of the shuttered Zion nuclear power plant: Safely removing its radioactive fuel rods.
The project is the largest in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry and the first in which a plant’s owner has turned over its license to a third party for the purpose of dismantling it. Utah-based EnergySolutions is staking its future on the project. How it handles the most expensive and risky phase of the project will be crucial to it winning other such work going forward.
The Zion plant, owned by Chicago-based Exelon Corp., the parent of Commonwealth Edison, generated electricity on the shores of Lake Michigan for close to a quarter of a century. By the time the project is complete, it will have taken nearly as long to destroy it. Continue reading
The coming epidemic of nuclear reactor shutdowns: where to put the wastes?
The NRC believes the fuel can be safely stored for at least 100 in casks. But the radioactive half life is 16 million years, with a defined hazardous life of 160 million years. The world will soon be dotted with these ad-hoc radioactive dumps.
For aging nuclear reactors, a coming surge of shutdowns How safe will these ad-hoc radioactive dumps be?, Kevin Gray, SmartPlanet, 20 Nov 13
When it first fired up its twin reactors in 1973, the Zion nuclear power plant in Illinois — roughly 40 miles north of Chicago — was the largest in the world. It was a stunning work of technology that supplied electricity to some two million homes. And it could have easily lived on into the new century. But in 1998, its parent company, the energy giant Exelon Corp, turned off its lights and shuttered the facility rather than face some costly upgrades.For 12 years, Zion sat dormant on prime Lake Michigan shorefront as Exelon shelled out $10 million a year to maintain it and protect it with round-the-clock patrols of armed guards. By 2010, the facility had become home to drifting weeds and nesting falcons.
But that year, the federal government — in an arrangement never tried before — agreed to allow Exelon to transfer custody of the plant to EnergySolutions, a nuclear-waste storage outfit. The deal was worth a potential $1 billion in clean-up fees to EnergySolutions. It would be the largest nuclear power plant decommissioning ever undertaken in the United States. And it pledged to return the 375-acre site back to Exelon as grass and local shrubbery at the end of 10 years……..
EnergySolutions has spent the past year removing Zion’s fuel rods from a cooling pool and putting them into the canisters and casks for dry storage. The fuel, which is still about 400 degrees, can now be air cooled. Christian expects the company to begin moving the casks, via a heavy-haul rail, 100 yards south of the reactors by mid-October.
They will remain there until the feds come up with an alternative to Yucca Mountain. “Until we have a national repository open, this spent fuel has to stay where it is,” says Lawrence Boing, a nuclear decommissioning specialist at Argonne National Laboratory’s nuclear engineering division. “The big question now is what do we do with this stuff?” Continue reading
Call for German utilities to pay more of nuclear decommissioning costs
German parties want utilities to shoulder nuclear shutdown costs BY MARKUS WACKET BERLIN Thu Nov 14, 2013 (Reuters) – German parties negotiating the formation of a coalition government want to make utilities pay more to dismantle their nuclear power plants and protect taxpayers from billions of euros in related costs, documents obtained by Reuters show.
Such a move, if adopted by a coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD), would be a blow to E.ON, RWE, Vattenfall and EnBW who have already put aside 30 billion euros in provisions.
“A … fund could be considered to safeguard the financing of the disposal of nuclear assets,” the paper from the working group on environmental policies said.
Under the new proposal, the utility companies could be forced to pay into the fund which would be under political control.
Over a dozen working groups are hammering out policy compromises on a range of issues with the aim of forming a government in December. The nuclear proposal would have to be approved by a larger coalition panel led by Merkel and other party leaders before it was set in stone.
“We expect cooperation from the nuclear power operators in the switch to renewable energy and an acknowledgement of their responsibility for the orderly ending of the use of atomic energy,” the paper said.
The idea of a fund reflects concerns that Germany’s four nuclear power companies have taken insufficient precautions to pay for the dismantling of the plants and storage of atomic waste…….
The SPD is also keen to raise nuclear fuel tax and to extend the levy beyond 2016, when it is currently due to expire. However conservatives oppose this notion.
(Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Susan Fenton) http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/14/us-germany-coalition-nuclear-idUSBRE9AD0HN20131114
Growing world realisation that nuclear power is an economic disaster
Because of costs, the de facto “solution” is firstly to extend reactor operating lifetimes, then partly decommission and dismantle reactors when they are taken out of service, delaying the decontamination of nuclear sites, and pushing all costs into the future. Unfortunately and until the reactors are made safe, they by definition pose almost open-ended risks. These extend from “simple” accidents and technical malfunction, to operator errors, and to the risk of them becoming giant Dirty Bomb targets in civil war, international war, or terror attacks. Even the most extreme non-nuclear industrial risks, notably at “Seveso or Bhopal type” chemical facilities, are pale by comparison.
Nuclear Power Dirty Bomb The Market Oracle, Oct 28, 2013 By: Andrew_McKillop THE 100-YEAR CURSE Within the next 15 – 20 years as many as 100 industry standard Westinghouse-type 900 MW PWR pressurized water reactors, concentrated in the “old nuclear’ countries will have to be decommissioned, dismantled and their sites made safe – unless political deciders maintain the sinister farce of rubber stamping reactor operating lifetime extensions. The decontamination process could take as long as 100 years. In several countries, especially Germany, Switzerland and probably Japan the dangerous game of politically-decided reactor life extensions – to push back the date of final decommissioning – has already ended or is ending.
But when it does end, nuclear debt will go into overdrive from its already extreme high setting. Nuclear power is capital intensive, lives on subsidies, thrives on false hopes and dies in debt.
Putting a figure on how much the nuclear “decomm” story will cost and how long it will take is in fact impossible – and is signalled by the tell-tale anticipative action of nuclear friendly governments. One stark example is the UK, which now sets decomm as an activity that will only need to start at a generous, or foolhardy 30 or 40 years after the reactor was powered down and removed from the national power grid. Until then, the reactor can sit on the horizon as a contribution to national culture or something “in perfect safety of course”. Decomm periods could or might therefore be 100 years.
DECOMMISSIONING SAGAS As already noted above, there are no rules, standards and best practice in decommissioning, dismantling and “making safe” or “securing” the former sites of reactors. So there is no standard cost for getting rid of reactors. It is a case-by-case process. This alone prods the highly political decision to set a “delay” between reactor shut down, and decommissioning which as noted above, in the extreme UK case is now set at 30-40 years.
Before the final shut down, of course, reactor operating life extensions can squeeze some more power out of the reactor – and further delay the moment when it has to be decommissioned. Only idiots can pretend this does not expose the reactor to increased risks of accidents. Ask yourselves if you prefer to fly in a 40-year-old airplane, or a new one.
Real-life decomm sagas, as distinct from emergency dismantling following a serious or catastrophic accident as in the case of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima are always – always – a tale of vastly underestimated initial costs and timelines for decomm, followed by massive cost overruns and time overruns. Plenty of examples concern the now-quarter-century old projects, and longer, where initial cost estimates have been exceeded by actual spending by 5 or 10 times, and the decomm project’s time for completion multiplied by 3. And today the projects are not yet fully completed!…….. Continue reading
Just under 100 years to clean up UK nuclear plant – if they’re lucky
The final decommissioning at Trawsfynydd and elsewhere depends on finding a safe long term solution for where to deposit the ILW as well as the High Level Waste (HLW) currently stored at Sellafield. This includes the spent nuclear fuel which was removed when the plant closed.
Trawsfynydd timeline
1959: Construction started
1965 to 1991: Electricity generation
1993 to 1995: Decommissioning starts – fuel removed and sent to Sellafield
1995 to 2016: Recovery of waste and preparations to put the plant into a ‘passively safe’ state
2020-26: Reduction in height of reactor buildings
2040s: Scheduled removal of Intermediate Level Waste to deep geological storage
2074: Final site clearance starts
2083: Site returned to pre-existing state
How do you close a nuclear power station? BBC By Steven Green 28 Oct 13 As the UK embarks on building what could be a new generation of nuclear power plants, work continues to decommission the first generation of nuclear power stations at sites including Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia which will take an estimated 90 years to complete. Continue reading
Public meeting on the disposal of dead San Onofre nuclear power plant
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Debates San Onofre Plant Shutdown At (includes Video) First Public Meeting http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/09/26/nuclear-regulatory-commission-debates-san-onofre-plant-shutdown-at-first-public-meeting/ September 26, 2013 SAN ONOFRE (CBSLA.com) — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission met on Thursday to debate the potential effects of shutting down the troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
KCAL9′s Stacey Butler reports hundreds of residents gathered for their first chance to hear what’s next for the plant since it was permanently closed earlier this year.
Gary Headrick led the charge to have the plant shut down for good.
“There are issues that can challenge us even more than having a reactor operating,” he said.
Headrick and others asked the NRC what they plan to do with the radioactive spent fuel rods.
He says they don’t have a proven storage technique. “Not only nuclear waste, but toxic waste that’s part of the decommissioning process will be released into the ocean and the environment. There is high burn-up fuel which is much different than at other nuclear facilities which makes it harder to store nuclear waste,” he said.
Activist Carol Jahnkow is asking for a citizens oversight committee.
“We don’t want to wait two years to find out what they’re going to do, how much they’ve been spending in the interim and what safety precautions they’ve taken,” she said.
An NRC spokesman said the agency will be watching Edison’s every move. “The decommissioning activity will be done safely under the watchful eyes of the NRC, and it’s not over until we say it’s over,” he said.
An Edison spokesperson declined an on-camera interview but said that it will cost over $4 billion to decommission the plant. Customers’ rates, the spokesperson said, will not go up for five years.
An NRC spokesperson said Edison is looking at either disassembling the plant quickly or letting it sit for 30 years while waiting for the radioactivity to decay.
Citizens want to oversee decommissioning of San Onofre nuclear plant
Citizens seek role in San Onofre decommissioning By ERIKA I. RITCHIE / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, 26 Sept 13, CARLSBAD – Speaking on behalf of several hundred people, Gene Stone asked officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday night to consider the formation of a citizens coalition that would help oversee the decommissioning of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, a process that could take decades.
“We are here today in the hope that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will make San Onofre the flagship project for a safe-and-sane cleanup of America’s effort at decommissioning our old and … http://www.ocregister.com/articles/decommissioning-528288-nuclear-edison.html
Japanese government considers taking over the Fukushima radiation cleanup
J
apan LDP Plan Would Put Government in Control of Fukushima Cleanup, WSJ, Proposal Would Reduce Tepco’s Financial Burden By MARI IWATA, 20 Sept 13 TOKYO—Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is considering a plan that would give the government sole responsibility for containing and cleaning up contamination from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power plant, allowing its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., 9501.TO -2.28% to focus its dwindling resources more efficiently on decommissioning the facility……..
The government had already effectively nationalized Tepco by buying a majority of its shares, but the stock still trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration is eager to see the cash-strapped company return to financial health, a significant challenge, given lost revenue from the idling of all of the company’s nuclear reactors, as well as the costs of the cleanup and purchasing of more liquefied natural gas than before the accident to fuel thermal-power plants to make up for lost nuclear generation.
Tepco has posted two straight years of large net losses since the accident. It swung to a profit in the April-June quarter, solely on the back of a large government subsidy to help it pay compensation to Fukushima victims but it carries Y800 billion ($8.14 billion) in debt that should be refinanced this fall. On top of that, Tepco estimates it must borrow an additional Y300 billion by the end of December if it wants to stay afloat, a spokesman said……..
Tepco President Naomi Hirose said Thursday that the company would prepare Y1 trillion ($10 billion) to decommission the entire plant in addition to Y960 billion it had reserved for the work by the end of June. This doesn’t include costs associated with handling contaminated water at the site. There hasn’t been any estimate on the total cost of decommissioning the stricken plant…….Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka has urged the government and Tepco to intensify the decommissioning effort, saying “the deadliest risk is another huge natural disaster,” which would “destroy all these makeshift tanks and water processing systems, releasing all the radioactive materials there into the environment.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324492604579086742989825408.htm
Public meeting about decommissioning process for san Onofre Nuclear Power PLant
NRC sets first public meeting on decommissioning San Onofre nuclear plant http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/09/12/39216/nrc-sets-san-onofre-nuclear-plant-meeting-in-carls/
Ed Joyce | September 12th, 2013 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Thursday it will hold a public meeting September 26 in Carlsbad to talk about the decommissioning process for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in northern San Diego County.
It will be the agency’s first public meeting on closing the plant operated by Southern California Edison.
The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Omni LaCosta Hotel, 2100 Costa del Mar Road. Doors will open at 5 p.m. to accommodate security screening.
An NRC press release says technical staff will give a presentation describing the process and regulations covering the decommissioning with a Q&A session to follow.
“We think this meeting is very important for the community,” said Gene Stone with San Clemente-based Residents Organized for a Safe Environment. It’s one of several groups in Orange and San Diego counties that pushed for the plant’s closure.
Stone says a coalition of environmental groups “will create a committee focusing on safety of nuclear waste storage, the timeliness of the process and the costs associated with decommissioning.”
The nuclear plant, which is located on the coast near the border of San Diego and Orange counties, has been shut down since January 2012 after radioactive steam escaped from damaged tubes inside one of the reactors. In June of this year, Southern California Edison announced it would seek the permanent closure of the plant.
Edison International Chairman Ted Craver told reporters in June that closing the plant would take decades and result in spent nuclear fuel being stored “for a very long time” at the plant.
According to Craver, the company has a $2.7 billion decommissioning fund that can be used to close San Onofre. But the money to make up for the loss of the San Onofre plant will come from ratepayers, insurance claims, shareholders and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which made the equipment that led to the problems at San Onofre.
The California Public Utilities Commission has set an October 1 hearing to determine just how much ratepayers will pay.
Earlier this month, Southern California Edison opened the San Onofre Digital Document Library. The utility said the library provides the public with documents related to the design of the steam generators that were cited as a reason for the plant’s problems.
Along with Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric owns 20 percent of the plant and the City of Riverside owns nearly 2 percent.
The plant is located about two miles south of San Clemente.
UK nuclear decommissioning executives rorted the system
Nuclear plant bosses forced to pay back inappropriate expense claims including a £714 taxi bill for a CAT, Mail Online 9 Sept 13
- Executives at Nuclear Management Partners consortium widely criticised
- They were brought in to help decommission part of the Sellafield plant
- Claims also included trip to US Masters and £719 on good from Amazon
- One boss demanded £714 cab fare for themselves ‘and the cat’
- Audit of claims from 2008 to 2012 leads to thousands being handed back Taxpayer-paid executives running the Sellafield nuclear power plant billed £714 to chauffeur-drive a cat, expense claims revealed today.
- Bosses at consortium Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) also used the perk to pay for flights to the US Masters golf tournament and Amazon purchases submitted without receipts.NMP were brought in to decommission a nuclear plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, but senior staff have now been forced to hand back thousands of pounds after an audit of their claims between 2008 and 2012.
- From more than 606 expense documents it emerged £236,781 of claims were requested without a proper description, £30,557 worth were purely for personal expenditure and £42,711 should not have been claimed at all.
Jamie Reed, Labour MP for Copeland in Cumbria, which contains Sellafield told City AM: ‘A workforce that is being asked to accept many changes – including pay restraint – will have many questions.
‘Taxis for cats and flights to the US Masters simply beggars belief.’ Continue reading
Build ’em up, pull ’em down – always money for the nuclear industry
Nuclear Trashmen Gain From Record U.S. Reactor Shutdowns Bloomberg By Brian Wingfield – Sep 4, 2013 More than 50 years into the age of nuclear energy, one of the biggest growth opportunities may be junking old reactors. Entergy Corp. (ETR) said Aug. 27 it will close its 41-year-old Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in 2014, making the reactor the fifth unit in the U.S. marked for decommissioning within the past 12 months, a record annual total. Companies that specialize in razing nuclear plants and hauling away radioactive waste are poised to benefit.
Disposal work is “where companies are going to make their fortune,” Margaret Harding, an independent nuclear-industry consultant based in Wilmington, North Carolina, said in an phone interview. Contractors that are usually involved in building reactors, including Bechtel Group Inc. and URS Corp. (URS), “are going to be looking very hard at the decommissioning side of it.”
With Dominion Resources Inc. (D), Duke Energy Corp. (DUK)and Edison International (EIX) shuttering reactors this year — and Exelon Corp. (EXC) planning to close its Oyster Creek plant in 2019 — the U.S. nuclear fleet of 104 units is shrinking, even as Southern Co. (SO) and Scana Corp. (SCG) build two units each. The reasons vary: Edison and Duke are permanently removing damaged plants from service. Entergy and Dominion are retiring the units because of factors including a glut of natural gas, a competing fuel……….
The length of time to decommission a reactor creates uncertainty surrounding plant oversight, according to Shaun Burnie, an independent nuclear consultant who previously led environmental group Friends of the Earth’s campaign to close Edison’s San Onofre plant in California.
“Is Entergy going to be around in 50 years time? In 10 years time?” he said in a phone interview.
Ralph Andersen, senior director of radiation safety and environmental protection for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the industry is entering a new era for the companies that handle reactor decommissioning.
“It really does open the door to the marketplace rethinking ways to handle decommissioning,” he said………. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-04/nuclear-trashmen-gain-from-record-u-s-reactor-shutdowns.html
The tricky but lucrative business of shutting down dead nuclear raectors
Nuclear Trashmen Gain From Record U.S. Reactor Shutdowns Bloomberg By Brian Wingfield – Sep 4, 2013 1:”……..Tricky Business The physical work involved in tearing down a nuclear plant takes about 10 years, according to John Hickman, a project manager in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decommissioning branch. The agency gives reactor owners 60 years to complete decommissioning, which it defines as permanently removing a plant from service and reducing radioactivity enough for the property to be used for another purpose.
The NRC is now overseeing 14 commercial reactors that are in some phase of decommissioning, excluding those marked for closure in the last year. The first plant to deliver commercial power in the U.S. was a General Electric Co (GE).-designed unit near Fremont, California, which began service in 1957, according to the agency. It was also the first unit to be decommissioned, in 1963.
Razing a plant is tricky business. Radiation can seep into the concrete, pipes and metal of plant structures, and workers need to be able to break down the units without exposing themselves, or the public, to contamination. Plants often sit idle for decades before being torn down in order to let radioactive material decay. Continue reading
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