Virginia-based Dominion Energy is negotiating with Utah-based EnergySolutions to sell Dominion’s shut Kewaunee nuclear plant in Wisconsin so it can be fully decommissioned, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. If the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves the deal, work could begin this year on a project estimated to cost $1 billion. No financial details of the detail were available.
Kewaunee, which has been shuttered since 2013 under the NRC’s SAFESTOR decommissioning protocol, closed when Dominion faced declining energy prices and was unable to sustain the project or find a buyer. Dominion bought the single-unit, 556-MW Westinghouse pressurized reactor in 2003 from Wisconsin Public Service Corp. and Wisconsin Power & Light in 2003 for $220 million and won NRC approval for a license extension to 2023.
The project was the penultimate nuclear plant in Wisconsin, which once housed four operating reactors. It was built between 1968 and 1974 at a cost of $776 million (2007 dollars). When Dominion bought the unit, it said the company would get the decommissioning funds for the plant from both investor-owned utilities. Dominion said the value of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission fund was $250 million (2003 dollars).
When Dominion announced the decision to shut the plant, the company it would take an after-tax charge of $281 million in the third quarter of 2012. “The one-time charge will be excluded from operating earnings,” Dominion said.
Florida-based NextEra Energy owns the remaining Wisconsin operating nuke, the Point Beach station southeast of Green Bay. Point Beach consists of two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors, each with 625-MW of nameplate capacity. Construction began in 1967 and was completed in 1972. It is Wisconsin’s single largest source of energy.
Last November, NextEra applied to the NRC for a license extension to run through 2050, the Madison-based Wisconsin State Journal reported. NextEra spokesman Peter Robbins told the newspaper, “We think there is tremendous value in having emissions-free power. It essentially has the reliability of a gas plant but the emissions profile of a solar panel.”
With an empty pipeline for new nuclear in the U.S., and the continuing closure of elderly plants unable to compete economically in competitive markets, decommissioning nuclear has become a growth business. So far, two firms dominate that market: EnergySolutions and Holtec International, with a variety of firms seeking to enter the market, if only to pick up work from the dominant players.
EnergySolutions, a privately held company based in Salt Lake City, has a nuclear decommissioning portfolio of at least six U.S. projects, and additional work in the U.K. and Japan, including the Fukushima reactor site, subject of the 2011 worst nuclear accident in the world.
Privately held Holtec International, based in New Jersey, is decommissioning six large nuclear units in the Northeast, including the controversial three-unit Indian Point station on the Hudson River north of New York City, which it recently agreed to buy from Louisiana-based Entergy.
With a large political and economic focus on dealing with global warming, U.S. debate swirls around whether existing nuclear plants should be shut when many argue they can continue to operate with no carbon dioxide emissions for decades, or whether they should be closed as uneconomic. The debate also includes whether the U.S. government should do everything it can to foster new nuclear construction.
National Geographic magazine last month published an article, “The controversial future of nuclear power in the U.S.” The article said that “debates rage over whether nuclear should be a big part of the climate solution in the U.S. The majority of American nuclear plants today are approaching the end of their design life, and only one has been built in the last 20 years. Nuclear proponents are now banking on next-generation designs, like small, modular versions of conventional light-water reactors, or advanced reactors designed to be safer, cheaper, and more flexible.”
So far, there is no public policy resolution to those debates in the U.S.
–Kennedy Maize