NUCLEAR POWER

Entergy sues over waste

Owner of Plymouth nuclear plant says federal government responsible for spent fuel.

The owner of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station has filed a suit against the federal government, looking to recover costs and exact damages for being forced to continue storing highly radioactive spent fuel at the Plymouth site.


By Christine Legere
clegere@capecodonline
Posted Jan. 5, 2015 @ 7:54 pm

PLYMOUTH - The owner of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station has sued the federal government, looking to recoup costs and exact damages for being forced to continue storing highly radioactive spent fuel at the Plymouth facility.

Entergy Corp. contends the government reneged on its obligation to build a federal repository for nuclear waste in the case filed Dec. 30 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C.

Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act enacted by Congress in 1982, the U.S. government was required to begin disposal of commercially-generated spent fuel in federal repositories no later than January 1998, in return for some hefty fees paid by the owners of the nuclear energy operations.

Entergy has paid $167 million into the waste fund since buying the Pilgrim plant from Boston Edison in 1999, to help cover the costs of building and operating a federal repository, according to court documents.

The suit is the second Pilgrim-related case Entergy has filed against the U.S. government. A previous suit, relating to costs incurred between 1999 and December 2008, netted the company $4.1 million for costs incurred and $27,000 for legal expenses.

This latest suit seeks to recover money spent between December 2008 and September 2014, and Entergy's attorney said the company will be looking for considerably more money.

“In the first case, we got paid for the spent fuel pool racks and some Nuclear Regulatory Commission fees,” said L. Jager Smith, Jr, a Mississippi lawyer. “This time, we’ve built a dry field storage area.”

Most of these types of suits have prevailed, according to Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the commission. The Department of Energy, which is responsible for the storage of spent nuclear fuel, did not respond to a request for comment.

Currently about 3,300 radioactive spent fuel assemblies are being stored in a large pool at Pilgrim’s nuclear reactor. The pool was originally designed for about 800. Special racks were installed to accommodate the larger number, but the pool is now at capacity.

Within the next few weeks, 204 rod assemblies will be moved into three heavy concrete dry casks that will be stored outdoors on the site. The transfer, along with costs to prepare the site and install a concrete pad, totals $65 million.

There has been some public protest of the planned location of the casks, which environmental groups say is too close to Cape Cod Bay.

Entergy meanwhile blames the federal government for storage-related problems.

“The government has failed to perform its reciprocal obligation to dispose of spent nuclear fuel, and currently has no plan to meet these obligations,” Entergy lawyers wrote in court documents. “Entergy Nuclear Generation Co. has incurred and will continue to incur costs associated with procuring additional spent fuel storage capacity, and other damages, as a result of the government’s failure to comply with its contractual obligations.”

Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, has been eyed for a nuclear waste repository since 1987, but continued resistance from legislators in that state and environmental concerns have kept any plan from coming to fruition. The licensing process for the site halted in 2009 when funding was cut from the budget by Congress, at the urging of the Obama administration.

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In 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ordered the licensing process to resume. Since then, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been working on a lengthy study of Yucca Mountain, but Sheehan said Monday his agency has exhausted all its funding. The report can’t be finished or the required hearings held until Congress authorizes more funds.

In any case, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission isn’t concerned over the current storage arrangement, based on the controversial “Waste Confidence Rule” it recently issued.

“We didn’t see any impediments to storing the material safely at the individual sites,” Sheehan said. “The casks would probably have to be replaced, but it could be stored on the sites for as long as 160 years.

Attorney Smith said Entergy currently has suits pending to recoup expenses for all its nuclear plants.

“We have 11 reactors on nine sites,” he said. “The Department of Energy is not performing, and we’re going to continue to pay.”

Smith predicted the Pilgrim court case would take no longer than 1 ½ years to settle, since it was assigned the same judge who handled the previous suit related to the plant.

Earlier this year, Entergy filed a similar suit over storage at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which recently shut down permanently. Storage of all the spent rods on that site will require 45 dry storage casks. Entergy was awarded $88 million in 2012 for an earlier Yankee-related suit over spent fuel storage.


http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20150105/NEWS/150109702/101015/NEWSLETTER100