VERNON, Vt. — Entergy Corp. announced today an agreement to sell the closed Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which would shorten the time to dismantle and decontaminate the site by 45 years.
Entergy plans to transfer its federal licenses to subsidiaries of NorthStar Group Services to accelerate decommissioning and site restoration.
In addition, Entergy announced plans to accelerate the transfer of all spent nuclear fuel to dry cask storage at the site, from 2020 to 2018.
Under Entergy’s original schedule, it expected to initiate decontamination and dismantlement of the plant in 2068, with projected completion of both decommissioning and site restoration by 2075. Under the agreement with Entergy, NorthStar has committed to initiate decontamination and dismantlement by 2021 and to complete decommissioning and restoration of the Vermont Yankee site by 2030. Thereafter, NorthStar will continue to operate and maintain the stored highly radioactive spent fuel rods until the Department of Energy fulfills its obligations to remove all of the spent nuclear fuel from Vermont Yankee to a national depository, which has yet to be designed or built.
The sale of Vermont Yankee is subject to closing conditions, including approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Vermont Public Service Board. Entergy and NorthStar will ask the Public Service Board to approve proposed site restoration standards that are generally consistent with those of other regional decommissioning projects. The companies anticipate that the transaction will close by the end of 2018, according to a press statement.
“By accelerating decommissioning, we are fulfilling a commitment we made in 2013 to decommission Vermont Yankee as soon as reasonably possible,” said Bill Mohl, president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities. “Decommissioning and site restoration, drawing on NorthStar’s expertise, will provide economic development for the region.”
Mohl added, “For Entergy, this transaction enables us to manage financial risk and reduce our company’s merchant power footprint.”
NorthStar, based in New York, is one of the premier U.S. dismantling and remediation companies and is partnering through a subsidiary with industry leaders AREVA, Waste Control Specialists and Burns & McDonnell to perform specialized services drawing on each company’s core competencies. The NorthStar team members have collectively worked on more than 300 nuclear and non-nuclear power plant projects over the past 15 years and bring deep expertise in complex and specialized tasks such as reactor vessel segmentation, waste packaging/transportation/disposal, environmental remediation, site closure and spent fuel management, Entergy said.
“Our in-house expertise, combined with the proven track record of our partners, provides the complete package of skills needed to ensure the timely, safe, cost-efficient decommissioning and restoration of the Vermont Yankee site,” said Scott State, NorthStar’s chief executive officer. “Our primary objective is to complete the decommissioning of the non-Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation portion of the site decades earlier than originally planned so that a majority of Vermont Yankee can be re-developed to promote business for the region.”
Holtec International, the manufacturer of the dry storage systems used at Vermont Yankee, submitted license amendment requests to the NRC earlier this year, which if approved, will support complete transfer of all of Vermont Yankee’s spent nuclear fuel to dry storage by the end of 2018.
The transfer of Yankee to NorthStar will include the transfer of the plant’s nuclear decommissioning trust and its obligations for spent fuel management and decommissioning. As a result, the nuclear decommissioning trust and associated asset retirement obligation will be removed from Entergy’s balance sheet.
The Vermont Yankee, a single unit boiling water reactor, began commercial operation in 1972. Entergy purchased the plant in 2002 from the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. It permanently ceased operations on Dec. 29, 2014. At full power, Vermont Yankee supplied nearly one-third of all electricity consumed in Vermont.