Author Topic: Three Mile Island is the latest nuclear power plant to announce retirement plans  (Read 1991 times)

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Offline thackney

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Three Mile Island is the latest nuclear power plant to announce retirement plans
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31612
JUNE 13, 2017



At the end of May, Exelon, the owner of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in southeastern Pennsylvania, announced its intention to retire the plant in 2019 unless the company is given assistance by the state to help keep the plant financially viable. Exelon’s announcement marks the sixth announced nuclear retirement in the past seven years.

Currently, 99 nuclear reactors at 60 nuclear power plants operate in the United States. Since the first commercial U.S. nuclear reactor came online in 1957, more than 30 nuclear reactors have retired. Some of these retired plants were test projects or experimental designs, but most provided commercial power for some portion of their operational lives.

Prior to the retirement of the Crystal River, Kewaunee, and San Onofre nuclear power plants in 2013, no nuclear reactor had been retired since 1998. Since 2013, two more plants—Vermont Yankee in 2014 and Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun in 2016—have retired. In total, the five nuclear plants that retired in the past four years had a combined capacity of nearly 5,000 megawatts (MW). In most of those cases, increased electricity generation from natural gas and coal made up for the reduced nuclear output in the months following nuclear plant shutdowns.

In addition to these recent retirements, six plants are scheduled to retire within the next nine years. Four of these—Palisades, Pilgrim, Oyster Creek, and Three Mile Island—have planned retirement dates more than a decade before their operating licenses expire. New nuclear plants are licensed to operate by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 40 years, but nearly 90% of currently operating nuclear power plants have applied for and received license extensions to operate for another 20 years.

Entergy, the owner of Indian Point, had initially applied for a license extension for the plant. When the extension was challenged by the state of New York because of environmental and safety concerns, Entergy announced its decision to retire the plant. Pacific Gas & Electric, the owner of Diablo Canyon, chose not to seek a license extension, and the company now plans to retire the plant by the time its license expires.

Economic factors have played a significant role in the decisions affecting the continued operation or retirement of nuclear power plants, as increased competition from natural gas and renewables has made it harder for nuclear generators to compete given slowing electricity demand growth.

In the announcement of its plan to retire Three Mile Island, Exelon noted that the plant had not been profitable for the past five years, and they sought subsidies from Pennsylvania to provide the financial support necessary to keep the plant open. New York and Illinois have already enacted programs to provide financial support to selected nuclear plants. Those programs are currently subject to legal challenges that have yet to be adjudicated.

The 2017 EIA Energy Conference will include a session on the future of nuclear power, examining the competitive challenges facing the existing fleet and the options available to plant owners and regulators as they examine the role of nuclear energy in their generation portfolios. The panel will be moderated by Greg Adams, leader of EIA’s Coal and Uranium Analysis team. Speakers on the panel include:

Edward Kee, CEO of the Nuclear Economics Consulting Group

Chris Mudrick, Senior VP for Northeast Operations, Exelon

Bradley Williams, Senior Advisor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy

The 2017 EIA Energy Conference, held June 26 and 27 in Washington, DC, will examine current trends and key developments affecting energy at the state, national, and global level. Conference registration is open through noon Eastern Time on June 22, 2017.
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Offline Frank Cannon

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At the end of May, Exelon, the owner of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in southeastern Pennsylvania, announced its intention to retire the plant in 2019 unless the company is given assistance by the state to help keep the plant financially viable.

Good luck with that. PA is way past broke. We don't have money to bail out a failing enterprise.

Offline IsailedawayfromFR

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Wonder what comprises 'retirement'?
No punishment, in my opinion, is too great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin~  George Washington

Offline Frank Cannon

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Wonder what comprises 'retirement'?

Full meltdown.

Offline driftdiver

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Can't build new power plans and the old ones are being closed.   I can hardly wait for the dark ages.
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Offline thackney

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Good luck with that. PA is way past broke. We don't have money to bail out a failing enterprise.

a $3.5 Billion deficit didn't stop New York.

Just add a surcharge to the electrical users.  What choice do they have?  Elect a conservative?

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2017/03/how_will_subsidies_for_upstate_ny_nuclear_plants_affect_your_electric_bill.html
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Offline thackney

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Can't build new power plans and the old ones are being closed.   I can hardly wait for the dark ages.

... it is expected that four more new units will come online by 2021, these resulting from 16 licence applications made since mid-2007 to build 24 new nuclear reactors....

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/usa-nuclear-power.aspx

Of course Westinghouse in bankruptcy over these construction projects might slow that down.
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Offline driftdiver

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... it is expected that four more new units will come online by 2021, these resulting from 16 licence applications made since mid-2007 to build 24 new nuclear reactors....

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/usa-nuclear-power.aspx

Of course Westinghouse in bankruptcy over these construction projects might slow that down.

just might slow em down, I for one do not plan to hold my breath.

I might invest in candles tho
Fools mock, tongues wag, babies cry and goats bleat.

Offline IsailedawayfromFR

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Full meltdown.
Since I retired 2 years ago, seems it is at least a partial meltdown for me.
No punishment, in my opinion, is too great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin~  George Washington

Offline Fishrrman

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Before too much longer, I expect to see more nuke plants dropping out into retirement like a row of falling dominoes.

After all the nuke plants are gone...
After all the natural gas fired plants have closed as their source fields play out...
... there will still be coal-fired plants chugging away.

Coal-fired energy isn't the past.
In terms of decades, it's the future.

Oceander

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Before too much longer, I expect to see more nuke plants dropping out into retirement like a row of falling dominoes.

After all the nuke plants are gone...
After all the natural gas fired plants have closed as their source fields play out...
... there will still be coal-fired plants chugging away.

Coal-fired energy isn't the past.
In terms of decades, it's the future.

Very unlikely.  At most coal will be the last of the past to be buried. 

Offline Joe Wooten

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Wonder what comprises 'retirement'?

A multi decade process. The operating license is converted to a possession license. The plant is mothballed to allow the activated isotopes in the reactor systems to decay off before demolition, the usual wait is about 30 years. The plant is de-staffed down to a small maintenance and security staff.  The spent fuel in the spent fuel pool has to cool enough to be put in dry cask storage, which takes about 10 years or so. Exelon has three retired units still in this process, two at the Zion plant, retired in 1998, and one at Dresden, retired in 1979. Some of the plant structures and systems in the non-radioactive part of the plant might be taken down and salvaged, like the Trojan plant in Oregon, or they might wait and do all of it at the same time.

Offline Joe Wooten

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... it is expected that four more new units will come online by 2021, these resulting from 16 licence applications made since mid-2007 to build 24 new nuclear reactors....

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/usa-nuclear-power.aspx

Of course Westinghouse in bankruptcy over these construction projects might slow that down.

It looks pretty certain that both Vogtle 3 and 4 and VC Summer 2 and 3 will be completed by the utilities. They will be getting a substantial settlement from Toshiba.

Offline thackney

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Before too much longer, I expect to see more nuke plants dropping out into retirement like a row of falling dominoes.

After all the nuke plants are gone...
After all the natural gas fired plants have closed as their source fields play out...
... there will still be coal-fired plants chugging away.

Coal-fired energy isn't the past.
In terms of decades, it's the future.

There is far more methane trapped under the ground and sea beds than coal.
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Offline kidd

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There is far more methane trapped under the ground and sea beds than coal.
The issue is going to be near-term local supply issues.

California and the Northeast are going to see significant supply issues in the 5-15 year future with the closing of SONGS, Diablo Canyon, Indian Point and Millstone.
California will have over-reliance on Palo Verde and the Northeast will have over-reliance on Quebec hydropower.

Meanwhile, with the addition of Summer-2/3 and Vogtle-3/4, the Southeast will have an abundance of reliable power.

Offline IsailedawayfromFR

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A multi decade process. The operating license is converted to a possession license. The plant is mothballed to allow the activated isotopes in the reactor systems to decay off before demolition, the usual wait is about 30 years. The plant is de-staffed down to a small maintenance and security staff.  The spent fuel in the spent fuel pool has to cool enough to be put in dry cask storage, which takes about 10 years or so. Exelon has three retired units still in this process, two at the Zion plant, retired in 1998, and one at Dresden, retired in 1979. Some of the plant structures and systems in the non-radioactive part of the plant might be taken down and salvaged, like the Trojan plant in Oregon, or they might wait and do all of it at the same time.
Boy, that sounds like quite a process.

I recall when I worked for a major oil company that was thinking of selling or abandoning a refinery, as most at the time were losing money.  We found no one who wished to purchase due to the environmental liability.

We wound up just keeping operating and losing money as it was our most economic option we had.

I imagined a nuclear plant had the same or worse cleanup requirements, and it appears they do.



No punishment, in my opinion, is too great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin~  George Washington

Offline Joe Wooten

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Boy, that sounds like quite a process.

I recall when I worked for a major oil company that was thinking of selling or abandoning a refinery, as most at the time were losing money.  We found no one who wished to purchase due to the environmental liability.

We wound up just keeping operating and losing money as it was our most economic option we had.

I imagined a nuclear plant had the same or worse cleanup requirements, and it appears they do.

Every nuke plant is required by law to have a D&D fund set up that they cannot touch until it comes time for D&D activities. Most of these funds are generated by a surcharge of a few tenths of a cent for every megawatt generated. There is a NRC regulatory guide for this we have to follow.

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part050/part050-0075.html