Decommissioning, Dismantlement of U.S. Nuclear Plants is a Thriving Business

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)-- Duke Energy Corporation (NYSE:DUK) (Charlotte, North Carolina) announced a plan in May to decommission its retired Crystal River Nuclear Plant nearly 50 years earlier than previously scheduled by contracting the job.

The announcement points to decommissioning as big business at a time when the U.S. operating nuclear fleet is diminishing.

Industrial Info is tracking more than $20 billion in U.S. nuclear plant decommissioning projects. Click here for the list of projects.

Click on the image at right for a graph showing U.S. nuclear plant decommissioning activity by market region.

Decommissioning includes all cleanup of radioactivity and dismantling of a plant. When the decommissioning is deemed complete, the plant site can be used for other purposes.

In the U.S., two options are used for decommissioning:

• "DECON" involves a relatively short-term process of dismantling a closed nuclear facility in which equipment, structures and portions of a plant are removed or decontaminated. DECON can take at least seven years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
• "SAFSTOR," or deferred dismantling, is a longer process that involves maintaining and monitoring a plant that allows the radioactivity at the site to decay. Afterwards, the plant is dismantled and decontaminated. Decommissioning is to be completed within 60 years.

Subject to approval by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Florida Public Service Commission, decommissioning of the Crystal River plant would begin in 2020 and end in 2027. Duke previously said the decommissioning would be finished by 2074. Duke said it has contracted with Accelerated Decommissioning Partners, a joint venture between NorthStar Group Services Incorporated (New York) and Orano USA, a part of Orano SA (Courbevoie, France) to perform the chore.

Duke said a trust fund that was established to pay for the decommissioning is large enough to accelerate the decommissioning without increasing customer bills. The trust fund had about $717 million as of March 31, said Duke, and an acceleration gives it "a potential opportunity to return the majority of unused trust fund dollars back to customers more than three decades sooner than the current 60-year decommissioning model."

Duke said it already has completed the initial phase of decommissioning, placing the plant in an "ideal condition to attract bidders to complete the work." It added that competition in the decommissioning industry has lowered costs, thus making the accelerated schedule feasible. If the deal is approved by regulators, Duke would remain the owner of the plant, while Accelerated Decommissioning Partners would be responsible for the decommissioning. The partnership would own and maintain an onsite dry-cask storage site, where nuclear fuel assemblies are stored in steel canisters housed in large concrete structures.

Another player in the nuclear plant decommissioning sector is Holtec International (Camden, New Jersey). Holtec agreed to acquire Entergy Corporation's (NYSE:ETR) (New Orleans, Louisiana) Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Massachusetts, which produced its last kilowatt-hour of electricity on May 31, and the Palisades Power Plant in Covert, Michigan, both for accelerated decommissioning.

Holtec also is acquiring Exelon Corporation's (NYSE:EXC) (Chicago, Illinois) Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Plant in Forked River, New Jersey, which was shut down in 2018. Upon the finalization of the purchase, an eight-year decommissioning process would be conducted by Comprehensive Decommissioning International, LLC (CDI) (Camden, New Jersey), a joint venture of Holtec and SNC-Lavalin, roughly 50 years ahead of the original decommissioning schedule.

Questions remain regarding the ultimate destination of radioactive material that has been removed from the decommissioned plants. Holtec has proposed construction of a consolidated interim storage Facility in Southeastern New Mexico. However, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has registered objections to the proposed facility, saying it could disrupt local agricultural or oil and gas activities, according to news accounts.

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