NRC Commissioners Have Short Window to Object to Pilgrim Plant Sale

COURTESY PILGRIM NUCLEAR POWER STATION

PLYMOUTH – Now that Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff have accepted the sale of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant, a final approval must be made by the federal regulatory agency’s commissioners.

The commission has until Monday to submit objections to the staff decision to allow the sale of the shutdown plant from Entergy to Holtec International.

NRC staff concluded that Holtec is “financially and technically qualified to own the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant” and carry out the decommissioning of the facility.”

NRC Spokesman Neil Sheehan said staff also looked into whether the $1 billion decommissioning trust fund for the plant would be enough to complete the process.

“We have determined that it is adequate,” he said.

If the commissioners allow the approval of the license transfer for Pilgrim, Holtec and Entergy would need to finalize the purchase and sale agreement.

“If that occurs then you would see [Holtec] move in and start to work on decommissioning the plant in a much more accelerated manner,” Sheehan said.

Entergy’s proposal was to decommission the plant through SAFSTOR process, which would take place over several decades.

Holtec seeks to do it in a much more compressed time frame – about eight years.

Holtec has never before owned or decommissioned a commercial nuclear power plant.

Whether the sale is finalized or not, the short-term focus of the decommissioning is getting fuel out of the spent fuel pool and into dry cask storage.

“Once that is completed they would then begin to do some of the work that involves radiological cleanup and the dismantling of buildings – all the things that entail the deconstruction of the plant,” Sheehan said.

Companies purchasing nuclear power plants that are shutdown only for the purposes of decommissioning is a new business model that has developed over the last few years.

“For us the test is whether they have the ability to do that – both on the financial and technical front,” Sheehan said.

Holtec has expressed interest in purchasing a number of plants in similar situations to Pilgrim throughout the Northeast.

“We have to make sure that they not only pass that test, but then once they begin the work that they carry it out as safely as possible and in compliance with our requirements,” Sheehan said.

Pilgrim shutdown its reactor at the end of May.