Entergy Not Setting aside Reserves for Decomissioning Indian Point

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June 21, 2009

NRC: Entergy fund for Indian Pt. 2 shutdown won't meet goal

 

Greg Clary

gclary

BUCHANAN - Federal regulators say the owners of Indian Point 2 are not

putting away enough money to safely close the nuclear plant when its license

expires in four years.

In a letter from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Entergy Nuclear,

senior agency officials reminded the company that a shortfall in

decommissioning funding doesn't affect safe operations of the 36-year-old

plant, but is

important to ensure it will be shut down properly.

The company must meet with regulators in the next two weeks to begin to

" describe how and when the licensee intends to make adjustments to its trust

fund balances ... (to) meet the minimum amount of financial assurance

consistent with NRC's regulations, " John P. Boska, of the agency's Licensing

Branch, wrote Thursday in a letter.

As of Dec. 31, 2008, there was $312.4 million in Indian Point 2's

decommissioning fund, nearly $100 million below the $407.5 million that the NRC

estimated is needed to close the plant properly in 2013, agency documents

show.

By comparison, Indian Point 3 had $388.2 million in its decommissioning

fund, with a $407.5 million price tag to close that reactor down in 2015.

Entergy officials said the nation's economy has hit Indian Point's trust

fund harder than expected and that the company would do whatever is

necessary to get its decommissioning accounts to the required levels.

" Entergy meets all current NRC decommissioning funding guidelines and

regulations and will meet those that change in the future, " said Entergy

spokesman Jerry Nappi.

" Any possible shortfalls in account funding will be discussed with the

NRC, and Entergy will ensure fund levels stay on track, " he said.

NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci said that the shuttered Indian Point 1

reactor has an adequate amount of money for its decommissioning according to

the

agency's formula and won't be shut down until the entire site is no longer

operating.

On Friday, the NRC began notifying the owners of 18 of the nation's

working 104 nuclear plants that they were facing shortfalls.

The Associated Press reported that the agency said it would work with the

plants on a case-by-case basis to develop remedial savings.

" Normally, there are only four to five plants that fall into this

category, " NRC senior congressional affairs officer Eugene Dacus wrote in the

memo.

Over the past two years, estimates of dismantling costs for the entire

U.S. nuclear industry have soared by more than $4.6 billion due to rising

energy and labor costs, while the funds that are supposed to pay for shutting

plants have lost $4.4 billion in the battered stock market.

Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry executive and decommissioning

expert who recently has been consulting with groups critical of the

industry, said the NRC's data still does not present a complete picture.

Gundersen said the level of decommissioning required by the NRC, in which

radioactivity is lowered but some structures are allowed to remain in

place, does not achieve the full site restoration some states call for.

" If you want your site back to the condition it was (before plants were

built), the NRC numbers are not going to get you there, " he said. " You're

going to have to put in hundreds of millions more. "

Entergy has filed for a 20-year extension to the licenses of Indian Point

2 and Indian Point 3, to keep the site producing electricity until 2035,

but that process won't be completed until at least the middle of next year.

 

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