BRATTLEBORO — In his first meeting as a member of the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel (VSNAP) on Oct. 16, State Rep. Mike Hebert, R-Vernon, found himself in the thick of a debate on making sure that Entergy, the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, decommissions the Vernon facility as quickly as possible.
A vote by the panel recommending that the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) support this course of action for the 41-year-old reactor in Vernon ended in a stalemate.
Hebert voted against the measure.
Three members voted in favor: Jim Matteau of Westminster, state radiological health chief William Irwin, and state Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange.
Two members abstained: Department of Public Service (DPS) Commissioner Christopher Recchia and state geologist Larry Becker. Recchia did not vote because of his position with the DPS, and Becker said he wanted more information about the proposal.
With four votes needed for passage, and the seventh VSNAP member, Leslie Kanat, absent from the meeting, the motion failed. Although it failed, Recchia said VSNAP will take it up again on Oct. 23 when the panel meets again in Montpelier for a special meeting.
The special meeting is necessary because the PSB has set a deadline for Oct. 25 for additional filings in the ongoing petition to grant Entergy a renewal of its Certificate of Public Good so it can legally operate VY under state law.
The plant got a 20-year federal license extension from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 2012.
The vote came in the second hour of a more than three-hour meeting at Brattleboro Union High School. It was VSNAP's first meeting since Entergy announced in August that it plans to shut Vermont Yankee down at the end of 2014.
Outlining the process
Perhaps the biggest unknown regarding Vermont Yankee's future is how the decommissioning will be done and how long it will take.
Irwin presented a rundown of the decommissioning process as outlined by the NRC, and Entergy's obligations.
Although VSNAP appears inclined toward a quick process, Irwin told the panel and the 30 people in attendance that the NRC allows the decision to rest with the plant owner.
Plants have two options: one called DECON, which dismantles and decontaminates a reactor site over a 10-year period, and another called SAFSTOR, which allows a plant to be mothballed for up to 60 years.
Irwin said Entergy can store all remaining spent fuel rods from the reactor in the plant's spent fuel pool for up to 50 years rather than encase them in hardened concrete and steel canisters known as dry casks.
A few dry casks are on site, but Irwin said there are not enough to hold all the spent fuel - and there's not enough room to expand the storage area.
Entergy said it plans to pursue the SAFSTOR option, but has not indicated how long it will mothball VY. Company officials have indicated that waiting to dismantle the plant would give time for the decommissioning fund to grow. That fund contains some $580 million, records show.
Critics of SAFSTOR say delaying decommissioning for 50 years calls into question whether Entergy would even be around that long to pay for dismantling the plant, and raises concern that this delay would nix any reuse of the site.
Other decommissioned nuclear plants around New England were dismantled within 10 years, Irwin said.
However, unlike those plants, which were owned by utility companies, Irwin said VY is what's known as a “merchant plant,” which sells its power in a competitive spot market. Without a pool of ratepayers standing by to assume any extra decommissioning costs, Vermont's taxpayers might get stuck with the bill.
“That's why I say we are to some degree in a new era,” Irwin said. “It's why the agencies of the state are trying to work together to understand all of these issues and to remain ahead of them.”
The exact cost of decommissioning will not be known until Entergy completes several site studies and cost estimates, as required by the NRC, within two years of the shutdown of VY's reactor. That is also the time frame for a final decision between DECON and SAFSTOR.
Keeping their word?
Recchia said that VSNAP generally “is on record as saying we think the plant should be decommissioned and restored to a useful site as safely, but as early, as possible.”
That is also the position of the Shumlin administration.
But MacDonald said he doesn't believe Entergy can be trusted to do what the state wants. He made a motion to have the state require that all of Vermont Yankee's operating profits, from the present until the reactor is shut down, are earmarked toward decommissioning.
“This is a time of uncertainty and unanswered questions, and I am very wary of making a decision that binds the state's ratepayers and taxpayers to a course of action we don't fully understand,” MacDonald said.
“I've been on this panel for 15 years,” he continued, “and every time we've tried to say, 'slow down, we're about to be left holding the bag,' we have been ignored and been left holding the bag. At the very least, every penny that this plant makes should go into escrow, or into the decommissioning fund immediately. They should not be allowed to run out the clock.”
Hebert disagreed:
“The state has been in a very adversarial relationship [with Entergy] for a number of years,” he said. “This action would be seen as another attack on the plant. There are a lot of negotiations going on right now, and I think it would weaken the state's position. We don't need to have more litigation.”
MacDonald withdrew his motion in favor of one made by Irwin to recommend that VSNAP advise the PSB to support immediate decommissioning for Vermont Yankee.