by John Herrick vtdigger.org The owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant made their first withdrawal last week from a trust fund reserved for decommissioning the facility. Louisiana-based Entergy removed $12 million from the decommissioning fund February 4 to pay for the first phase of decommissioning planning, which includes evaluating the site, preparing reports and other planning work, company officials said Wednesday.
The state was not notified of the withdrawal in advance and did not have an opportunity to weigh in on whether it was a good use of the money, which is partially owed to Vermont ratepayers, according to a state official.
The company shut down the nuclear power plant in Vernon on December 29 for economic reasons. In January, the company notified federal regulators that it removed all spent nuclear fuel from the reactor and placed it into a cooling pool. By 2020, all fuel is expected to be removed from the building and stored in dry casks on site indefinitely.
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Entergy will seek permission to begin decommissioning the plant 120 days after the fund reaches the level needed to cover the entire cost of decommissioning, which could be sooner than required by federal regulations.
The fund has about $650 million and has grown by about 6 percent a year over the past decade. The total cost to decommission the plant is $1.2 billion, according to company estimates.
Entergy is using the fund now to recover certain decommissioning expenses. Withdrawing from the fund reduces its rate of growth, but the expenses will no longer be included in the total cost of decommissioning.
The state does not oppose Entergy’s first withdrawal from the fund for planning purposes, but was not notified, according to Department of Public Service Commissioner Chris Recchia.
“I am probably more OK with the actual withdrawal than I am with the process,” Recchia said. “I know they have expenses that they have legitimately incurred for decommissioning. The problem I have is that I don’t know that. I don’t get to see it in advance.”
He said the state does not have a voice in the company’s withdrawals from the fund. Vermont ratepayers paid for 55 percent of the original principal in the fund, and are entitled to half of any remaining money after the plant is decommissioned.
Recchia said the state is asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is notified when Entergy incurs decommissioning-related expenses, to have more involvement in withdrawals.
The state wants the fund to grow as fast as possible in order to expedite the decommissioning timeline. The state opposed a plan by the company to use the money to remove spent fuel from the plant, known as spent fuel management, which accounts for $368 million of the estimated price tag.
The company said it has obtained a $143 million line of credit that will be used to cover the cost of purchasing new dry casks, a storage pad, and the expense of transferring the fuel. The interests on the credit and remaining spent fuel management expenses, such as security costs, may be recovered from the fund. The company is currently negotiating the price for dry casks with vendors.
Recchia said the decommissioning process will be “iterative,” as the cost to deconstruct the plant increases with time.
He cited the recent detection of radioactive Strontium-90 in a well at the plant as an example. He also said the cost to deconstruct the building will rise.
“The plant will never be cheaper to dismantle and to restore that site than it would be as soon as possible. It will always be more expensive later,” Recchia told a joint House and Senate natural resources and energy committee Wednesday.
Mike Twomey, vice president of external affairs for Entergy. VTDigger file photo
Mike Twomey, vice president of external affairs for Entergy, said he expects that the company will complete the decommission within the 60 years it is allowed, and likely sooner. If the fund comes up short, he said there would be litigation between the state and the company as to how to pay for it.
“We would all have a point of view,” Twomey told the committee.
The state is still negotiating site restoration standards for after the plant is deconstructed. Recchia said there are two state standards that could be more stringent than the federal standards. Entergy has agreed to return the site back to “unrestricted use,” consistent with Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards.
The company will commit a $25 million principal payment to a separate site restoration fund by 2017, which will grow throughout the decommissioning process.