The state and Entergy continue to disagree on how to pay the cost of decommissioning the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
Entergy, the Louisiana-based owner of the Vernon plant, plans to shut it down by the end of the year for economic reasons. The company is now seeking permission from federal regulators to eliminate off-site emergency response planning about 15 months after the reactor stops turning.
By April 2016, the spent fuel in a cooling pool will have decayed to a level that safely allows the company to reduce off-site emergency planning activities, according to Entergy’s petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But the state wants to ensure that off-site emergency planning remains adequate until all the spent nuclear fuel is moved from a cooling pool and into long-term dry casks, which Entergy plans to complete by 2020.
The company plans to recover the cost of emergency planning from a special fund designed to pay for the decommissioning process after the plant shuts down. The company will begin to decommission the plant only when the fund accumulates enough money to cover the entire cost, which the company estimates at $1.24 billion. There is about $642 million in the fund now.
Longterm emergency planning will drain more money from the fund and delay the process of decommissioning, which is already estimated to take at least two decades.
SAFETY CONCERNS
There are currently 2,628 assemblies in a cooling pool and 884 assemblies already placed into 13 steel-reinforced concrete casks, according to an Entergy report.
Department of Public Service Commissioner Chris Recchia is the chair of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel, which oversees the process of decommissioning.
“We think that in the time that the spent fuel is in the pool, we should maintain an off-site emergency capacity. It can be reduced from where it is now, but it shouldn’t be eliminated,” he said.
Entergy plans to reduce staffing levels at the power plant from 316 to 127 workers by June 2016. The company says the employee drawdown will hasten the decommissioning process. Maintaining staffing levels for emergency response through 2020 would cost an additional $100 million, Entergy says.
Marty Cohn, an Entergy Vermont Yankee spokesman, said the company has assumed staffing levels for emergency response will be reduced, but he couldn’t say how the costs would affect the fund or the timeline for decommissioning.
“It’s just going to extend the amount of time it takes to decommission,” he said. “The more money you take out of the fund, there is less money for it to grow.”
TAPPING THE FUND
The state and Entergy in December reached an agreement on certain terms of the decommissioning process. The agreement, however, does not establish how the company will spend the money in the trust fund. The state has already opposed Entergy’s planto use the trust to cover the cost of spent fuel management.
The state says the fund should be used for dismantling the nuclear power plant. Entergy wants to use money from the decommissioning fund to pay for emergency planning, moving the fuel to dry cask storage and other operating costs. Spent fuel now located in a watery pool on the site must be moved to concrete casks.
Attorney General Bill Sorrell said emergency planning is a cost that should come out of the company’s operating budget.
“We want decommissioning to be able to move forward as soon as reasonably possible and we don’t want to let Entergy’s profit considerations and risk-averse desires to cause an undue slowdown of the growth of the fund,” he said.
Sorrell said the state plans to have a seat at the table to review any expenses Entergy seeks to recover from the decommissioning fund.
Cohn said there are safeguards as to how money from the fund will be spent. The NRC will decide whether to review the company’s Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report.
Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer with Fairewinds Energy Education and a longtime nuclear safety advocate, said eliminating off-site emergency planning before the spent fuel pool is empty is not safe.
Gundersen said the spent fuel will remain hot for two to three years after is it removed from the reactor and placed into a pool. The fuel is kept cool by water circulated by electricity. He said there is a risk that the plant could lose power, which could cause the fuel to overheat.
He said the spent fuel canisters would then be removed from the pool, suspended in the air, and placed into dry casks for long-term storage.
“The most dangerous time is while they are moving fuel,” he said.
The NRC, according to a new rule adopted in October, found that it is unlikely that an accident in a spent fuel pool would result in off-site radiological impacts.
But Recchia said in the event that something does go wrong, all states surrounding the plant, include New Hampshire and Massachusetts, should maintain an emergency response capacity. He said he also wants to ensure that Entergy maintains adequate data management systems.
“Is there zero risk? No. And we need to manage it appropriately,” he said.
Entergy will place the plant into SAFSTOR, a decommissioning process in which the NRC allows the plant to sit for up to 60 years. The company plans to decommission the plant sooner than the maximum timeline required by the NRC.
