entergy nuclear decommissioning


Dennis Reisenweaver and Michele Laraia, Preparing for the End of the Line: Radioactive Residues from Nuclear Decommissioning, IAEA Bulletin, 42/3/2000 (September 2000) “Holtec and its decommissioning team have decades of experience safely decommissioning nuclear power plants, used fuel handling and site remediation,” said spokesperson Joe Delmar. EnergySolutions was already active in this kind of role. OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, Decommissioning Nuclear Power Plants: Policies, Strategies and Costs (2003) Decommissioning in Germany, Nuclear Engineering International (27 March 2013), © 2016-2021 World Nuclear Association, registered in England and Wales, number 01215741. In Slovakia, a detailed case study showed a total cost of €1.14 billion to decommission Bohunice V1 (2 x 440 MWe) and dismantle it by 2025. In the case of immediate dismantling (or early site release), responsibility for completion of decommissioning is not transferred to future generations. After Hurricane Katrina hit the city of New Orleans in August 2005, Entergy temporarily relocated the 1,500 employees and contractors who worked at the headquarters to other cities, including Clinton, Mississippi, Little Rock, Arkansas, and The Woodlands, Texas. No NRC-licensed plant has used this option. 06/18/98 § 25.303: Nuclear Decommissioning Following the Transfer of Texas Jurisdictional Nuclear Generating Plant Assets. However, their half life is such (2.7 years, 45 days, 5.3 years, 245 days respectively) after 50 years from closedown their radioactivity is much diminished and the occupational risk to workers largely gone. The Army's SM-1 at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, was similar and shut down in 1973. Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. BUCHANAN, N.Y. (WCBS 880) — A lawsuit was filed on Friday by New York State Attorney General Letitia James regarding the dismantling of the Indian Point Nuclear Site in Buchanan. The 59 MWe Pathfinder prototype BWR in South Dakota, shut down in 1967 after a very short life was also a Decon project, completed in 1992. [13], Entergy is the only U.S. utility to make the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) nine years in a row. Experimental, early commercial types and commercial units whose continued operation was no longer justified, usually for economic reasons. They will only supervise anything that is radioactive. The non-utility nuclear segment operates a total of nine nuclear power plants: The company's nuclear division is headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi. In the USA, utilities are collecting 0.1 to 0.2 cents/kWh to fund decommissioning. The aims are to minimise the radiological hazards to workers and to optimise the dismantling sequence and timing to reduce the total decommissioning cost. Japan's Tokai 1 reactor, a 160 MWe UK Magnox design, is being decommissioned after 32 years service to 1998. Many of these (marked with an asterisk in the Table) ran relatively full-term, for design lifetimes of 25-35 years or so (design lifetimes today are 40-60 years). The current agreement runs to 2018. John Herron retired from Entergy where he was the President, CEO and Chief Nuclear Officer of Entergy Nuclear, with responsibility for Entergy’s nuclear plants located in New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Michigan, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas as well as the company’s management service to the Cooper Nuclear Station for the state of Nebraska. After 30 years Safstor, when activity levels have diminished by 95%, the remainder of the plant will be removed. A recycling plant for steel from dismantled nuclear facilities is at Marcoule, in France. OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, Recycling and Reuse of Scrap Metals, A Report by a Task Group of the Co-operative Programme on Decommissioning (1996) Apart from some surface contamination of plant, the remaining radioactivity comes from "activation products" in steel which has long been exposed to neutron irradiation, notably the reactor pressure vessel. The reactor buildings are in an extended Safstor period. In 12 months to January 2015 EnergySolutions transferred all 2226 used fuel assemblies to 61 Magnastor dry casks onsite – an ISFSI, where it will remain until taken to the future national repository. Even allowing for uncertainties in cost estimates and applicable discount rates, decommissioning contributes a small fraction of total electricity generation costs. OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, Recycling and Reuse of Materials Arising from the Decommissioning of Nuclear Facilities, NEA No. Entergy traces its history to November 13, 1913, with the formation of Arkansas Power Company. An OECD Nuclear Energy Agency survey published in 2016 reported US dollar (2013) costs in response to a wide survey. About 17 of these had the full decommissioning process completed by the end of 2016. In 2011, Entergy and Coulomb Technologies, an electric vehicle charging station maker, began to donate free electric vehicle charging stations at 16 sites at college campuses in the southern U.S. Its first installation was at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and is free to use for faculty and students. This took place on a fixed-price contract for US$ 195 million (hence costing less than 1 cent/kWh despite only a 16-year operating life) and the project proceeded on schedule to clear the site and relinquish its licence early in 1997 – the first US power reactor of this size to achieve this. Notes & references. About two-thirds of the total estimated cost of decommissioning all US nuclear power reactors has already been collected, leaving a liability of about $9 billion to be covered over the remaining operating lives of about 100 reactors (on the basis of an average of $320 million per unit). Clearance levels differ internationally, leaving scope for greater harmonisation, and some levels are unjustifiably conservative, e.g. Thus, after 14 years of comprehensive clean-up activities, including the removal of fuel, debris and water from the 1979 accident, Three Mile Island 2 was placed in post-defuelling monitored storage (Safstor) until unit 1 eventually closed down, so that both units could be dismantled together. Much of this can be recycled or reused in some way where allowed by national regulation, and unlike ‘wastes’, transferred to other countries. Total 12. For US reactors the expected total decommissioning costs range from $544 to $821 million; for units over 1100 MWe the costs ranged from $0.46 to $0.73 million per MWe, for units half that size, costs ranged from $1.07 to $1.22 million per MWe. Water Treatment. Chernobyl 2 was closed in 1991 after a turbine fire when it would have been politically impossible to repair and restart it, Rheinsberg was closed in 1990 though it was nearly at the end of its design lifetime – both these are in the 'political decision' category. [18] An Entergy subcontractor used Crowds on Demand to artificially lobby council support for the gas plant. This plant started up in 1958 and treated 18,600 tonnes of metal fuels from gas-cooled reactors (both defence and civil) to 1997. Founder Harvey C. Couch used sawdust from a lumber company to bring electricity to rural Arkansas. About 32 ha has been released for unrestricted use. Nuclear. External sinking fund (Nuclear Power Levy): This is built up over the years from a percentage of the electricity rates charged to consumers. Areva is decommissioning the Eurodif enrichment plant at Marcoule since 2012. Except for the used fuel storage, the site was released for unrestricted use in 2005. The spent fuel is planned to remain at the onsite storage facility until 2036, when it would be moved to a federal facility. Material with short half-life products that is melted and fabricated in a regulated environment and released for specific industrial applications (. Procedures are set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and considerable experience has now been gained. Application of a 0.3 mSv/yr dose limit results in a clearance level for Ra-226 of 500 Bq/kg, compared with 10 Bq/kg for nuclear material. Decommissioning has begun at 29 UK reactors, 25 of them early Magnox types with graphite moderators. Experience in the USA has varied, but about ten power reactors are using the Safstor approach, while about 20 – mostly single-unit plants – are using, or have used, Decon. The important areas where experience is being gained and shared are the assessment of the radioactive inventories, decontamination methods, cutting techniques, remote operation, radioactive waste management and health and safety. Immediate dismantling enables the maximum use of the residual life of the equipment and structures of the shutdown units, reduces maintenance costs, makes use of existing radioactive waste management facilities, and employs the skills of personnel. Material which is essentially uncontaminated and unconditionally released. As a result, utilities have not dismantled any moderators of CO2 cooled power reactors to date." Decommissioning trust funds for the three reactors amounted to $2.1 billion in 2019 so are expected to cover the work by the time unit 3 shuts down in 2021. The Sturgis had a 45 MWt/10 MWe (net) PWR which provided power to the Canal Zone. OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, Decommissioning Funding: Ethics, Implementation, Uncertainties, A Status Report, NEA No. The contract structure transfers the risk of potential cost overruns and latent liabilities to the joint venture. Waste Management and Decommissioning. It is being decommissioned by EnergySolutions from 2019. For Finland’s Loviisa (2 x 502 MWe) the estimate was €326 million. The site was released for unrestricted public use in 2007, apart from 2 ha for dry cask used fuel storage. Entergy is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana,[5] and generates and distributes electric power to 2.9 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.