Decommissioning Costs for the Humboldt
Bay Nuclear Power Plant
The final Environmental Impact
Statement in 1987 stated the decommissioning cost as $95 million. In
2006, after a thorough review by the TLG consulting firm, the cost
was raised to $378.5m. In 2011, at one of the Community Advisory
Board meetings, the cost was revised to $550m. In 2013, in an
official publication, the final cost through 2025 was estimated at
$1.08 BILLION. (see attachment)
There are several reasons for this huge
amount.
First, this plant was really very
dirty, and the way it was built allowed RA contamination to seep all
over the place...into concrete gaps, pipe holes, etc. After all the
surveys, it was deemed easier and more cost effective to treat almost
all the concrete structures as low level waste, carefully demolish
them, and haul it all away to Texas, Utah, and Idaho; rather than to
painstakingly try and separate out the more contaminated components.
This, of course was expensive and required a lot of controlled
demolition, packaging, and transportation by truck.
A second reason for the cost increase
was the demand by the community and PG&E's acceptance that all
the RA contamination below ground be removed. This reactor was below
grade, and the concrete caisson in which it sat was contaminated due
to leaks, activation, etc. Since Humboldt Bay is just a few hundred
feet away, this caisson sat within the groundwater at the site. At
one point several years ago, water actually was seeping INTO the
caisson and had to be sealed. So again, instead of trying to remove
the more radioactive portions of the caisson, the whole thing will be
demolished and shipped away. In order to do this, a 300+ ft slurry
wall will be built around the footprint of the plant down to a depth
of 120 feet, the water will be pumped out and treated, the concrete
caisson will be demolished and hauled away, and then the hole will be
backfilled. The estimated cost of of this is about $400m.
A third reason for the high expenditure
is that the Spent Fuel is covered under the decommissioning fund.
Close to $70m was spent in 2008 to build the ISFSI storage facility
on site where the fuel and reactor internals are in 6 dry casks
located in a concrete vault. The cost of maintenance and security
runs about $12m/yr, although the actual number is hard to get out of
PG&E. If you look at the 2013 PG&E budget, you'll see that
$471m was spent up to 2012, and $1bn to be spent completely removing
the plant by 2017, and in the years to 2025, the costs of final
environmental remediation and spent-fuel storage takes the cost out
to close to $1.2bn. What the costs for security, etc. after that
remains to be seen.
As to who pays for all this, it is
definitely NOT the utility of its stockholders; but the ratepayers,
and to some degree, the taxpayers. In the '70's and '80's, two funds
were set up to assure money for spent fuel storage and
decommissioning. The first was a fee of 1 mill ($0.001) for every
nuclear kwh of electricity generated. Some $24bn has been collected;
but this is all moot now, since the rulings late last year where the
Federal courts have suspended collection to this fund, some $12bn was
spent on Yucca Mountain, and several utilities have sued and been
re-reimbursed for some of the moneys they put in. So it looks like
the taxpayer will wind up paying for the storage and ultimate
disposal (if that ever happens) of the spent fuel around the country.
The second fund...the decommissioning
trust fund...was set up by PG&E to collect money from the utility
ratepayers as a fee on their monthly bill. In 2006, there was $265m
in the fund; and in spite of the economic downturn, in 2011, PG&E
stated there was $332m in the fund. Over the past 5 or so years, the
PUC has authorized the collection of somewhere around $15-18m/yr to
be added to the fund.
My next quest to to get a real handle
on how much has been collected over the years, how much has been
spent out of the fund, and more importantly, how much will continue
to be collected to pay the $1.2+/-???? for the future. An
interesting point is that people today, and our kids and grandkids
tomorrow will pay for the “cheap” nuclear electricity generated
over the past 40 years. I've estimated the the HBNPP produced about
5 billion kwh of electricity in its 14 years of service. This
amounts to over 20 cents/kwh just for decommissioning, and add to
that the inestimable costs of High-Level Waste in the future. Then
there is the costs of decommissioning all the support infrastructure,
uranium mines, enrichment plants, etc, etc,....$$$$$$$$$$$s!!!!!!
I am thrilled to see these issues
beginning to come to light with the recent closure of San Onofre and
the pending closure of Vermont Yankee. Both of these reactors sites
are getting national press as to how decommissioning will occur, how
long will it take, and most importantly, WHO will pay HOW MUCH for
it. This is a battle I have bee n fighting for over 30 years.
