US NRC Blog Update: A New Look at Reactor Decommissioning

A New Look at Reactor Decommissioning

Leave a comment Posted by Moderator on April 24, 2014

David McIntyre

Public Affairs Officer

 

 Four nuclear power plants closed in 2013 and another is expected to shut down later this year. That puts decommissioning in the spotlight – so the NRC has produced a new video explaining how it’s done.
By way of background, the owners of Crystal River 3 in Florida, Kewaunee in Wisconsin, and San Onofre 2 and 3 in California already have taken the first steps toward decommissioning their plants. They’ve certified that they permanently ceased operations and removed the fuel from the reactors into their spent fuel pools. Their licenses no longer allow them to operate the reactors.
The owners of Vermont Yankee will do the same when that plant stops operating as scheduled late this year.
The companies then have up to two years to develop and submit decommissioning plans – called the post-shutdown decommissioning activities report, or PSDAR. The report includes a description and a schedule for decommissioning activities and their estimated cost. The report also includes a discussion of why any anticipated environmental impacts have already been reviewed in previous reports on the plant. Crystal River submitted its report last December.
Plant owners typically combine two decommissioning approaches: DECON, in which the plant is dismantled and the site cleaned up to the NRC’s specifications, and SAFSTOR, maintaining the plant as is for a period of time before final cleanup. Waiting allows the radioactivity at the site to decay, making cleanup easier. (A third approach, entombing the reactor in place, has never been used by NRC licensees.)
Two years before the license is to be terminated, the plant owner submits its License Termination Plan to the NRC. The NRC surveys the site to verify the cleanup has been successful before terminating the license (or amending it if spent fuel is still stored there).
We hope you’ll take a few minutes to view the new video. Even more information about the decommissioning process can be found on the NRC website.