FAQs

Nuclear Safety

Safety is considered primarily important in all phases of operations and administration. Holtec’s commitment to safety starts at the highest levels of management and penetrates through the company at all of our operations centers and in all our projects. No one in the organization is exempt from the obligation to ensure safety first. While quality and productivity are critical to our operations, they will never take precedence over the safety of personnel or protection of the environment. Holtec’s safety program encompasses both nuclear safety and personnel safety.  Nuclear safety must consider the overall health and safety of the workers as well as the general public. As such, nuclear safety encompasses all activities involved in the design, analysis, manufacturing, testing, inspection, installation and use of equipment and services that we provide.

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Personnel Safety

Personnel safety is at the forefront of Holtec’s focus in all aspects of our businesses, manufacturing locations and nuclear sites. All aspects of Holtec’s safety program focus each employee on their personal responsibility for their safety and the safety of their co-workers. This inward focus is enhanced with regular safety training, a safety incentive program, recognition of individual safety efforts and the active involvement of executive management.

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The Holtec Quality Assurance (QA) Program is structured to provide assurance to the company’s stakeholders that the quality of the products and services that are offered are the finest available anywhere. The strict policy of Holtec is to perform work in accordance with applicable regulations, codes, standards, and customer specifications.

Holtec believes that a comprehensive QA program must encompass design, analysis, licensing (certification), procurement, testing, fabrication, delivery, installation, field services, and operations activities in a seamless quality of service. Holtec’s commitment to the proper implementation of its QA program is evidenced by the unbroken record of acceptance of Holtec as a qualified supplier of safety significant projects by every prospective client since the company’s inception in the 1980s.

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Holtec’s Corporate Governance and Ethics Program provides principles and guidelines designed to help company associates make decisions that reflect the highest ethical standards. The Company’s policy is to abide by all U.S. government laws and the laws of any state, municipality or other country where we do business.  But our commitment to integrity goes far beyond observing the letter and spirit of the law. Even when there is no law, rule, regulation or contractual provision covering a given situation, we take personal pride in knowing that the Company expects us to do what is right. Whether at home or abroad, under all circumstances, Holtec International is committed to being an ideal corporate citizen by maintaining an impeccable standard of business and professional conduct.

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To contact someone at Holtec, view the interactive map of our worldwide operations center or use our contact form.

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The terms used nuclear fuel and spent nuclear fuel are both used to describe nuclear fuel that has been used in a nuclear reactor. There is no liquid in used nuclear fuel. Used nuclear fuel is a solid material, in the form of ceramic pellets. Each pellet is about the size of a pencil eraser. The pellets are stacked inside long metal zirconium tubes approximately 12 feet long, which are sealed on each end to form a fuel rod. Between 100 and 300 fuel rods are arranged in a square pattern to form a fuel assembly. Depending on the design, a reactor core may have between 120 and 800 fuel assemblies. A used fuel storage cask may contain up to 89 fuel assemblies. Learn more about nuclear fuel by watching this Nuclear Energy Institute video.

A single nuclear fuel assembly spends around five years in the reactor of a nuclear plant, creating heat that is then turned into electricity. Typically, every 18 to 24 months, a nuclear plant stops generating electricity to replace a third of the fuel assemblies in the reactor with fresh ones. The assemblies removed from the reactor are then stored in a large body of water inside the nuclear plant, called the spent fuel pool, where they cool over time. The water also shields the workers from the radiation that comes from the fuel assemblies. Due to the use of water, this storage method is also often referred to as “wet storage”.

After the used fuel assemblies have cooled for at least one year, they may be moved from the pool to canisters made from stainless steel filled with an ‘inert gas,’ i.e. a gas that does not chemically react and prevents corrosion of the content of the canister, such as Helium. The steel canisters are strength welded closed in order to provide a leak-tight containment of the used nuclear fuel and are placed inside large robust casks made of steel and concrete.

The steel and concrete casks surrounding the canister provide radiation shielding to workers and the public from the stored used nuclear fuel, and physical protection of the fuel. The casks are then initially stored at the site of the nuclear plant. Since this storage method does not require any water, it is often referred to as “dry storage”. It also does not use any fans for cooling and electric power is not required.

The incidence of damage to nuclear fuel assemblies during their time in the reactor core has been trending down steadily over the years as improved materials, designs and operational conditions have been developed and used. Nevertheless, a small fraction of commercial nuclear fuel assemblies may still be damaged during its burn in the reactor. However, Holtec’s dry storage and transport systems have the ability to safely store and transport used nuclear fuel that is considered damaged. In fact, Holtec’s dry storage systems are already safely storing damaged used fuel in various locations right now.

Even though the plant owner knows the state of its fuel in wet storage, prior to placing a used fuel assembly into dry storage, each fuel assembly is inspected for damage. If an assembly is damaged, additional special packaging is used for that assembly within the dry storage system.

The plant knows the state of its fuel in wet storage and only a small fraction of commercial nuclear fuel has been damaged during its burn in the reactor. If an assembly is thought to be too fragile to maintain its configuration during handling, it can still be loaded into dry storage systems, using special tooling designed and manufactured by Holtec to safely lift the used nuclear fuel assembly into the dry storage system. For any assembly that is damaged, additional special packaging is used within the dry storage system.

If an assembly is damaged or suspected of being damaged, additional special packaging is used for that assembly within the dry storage system.

A fuel assembly is thoroughly inspected prior to placement into a dry storage canister. After placement of assemblies into the canister, the canister is fully strength welded closed, dried and then filled with inert gas such as helium. The presence of inert gas does not allow any deterioration of the stored spent fuel.

Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations, or ISFSIs, are facilities that are designed and constructed for the interim storage of spent nuclear fuel. These facilities are licensed separately from nuclear power plants and are considered independent even though they may be located on the site of a nuclear power plant or another NRC-licensed facility. They are designated and qualified for interim use only, i.e. for spent fuel storage until a final repository for spent fuel is available.

MRS is an acronym for a monitored retrievable storage facility. It means an interim storage site where the condition of the fuel package is subject to monitoring. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act mentions (one or more) MRS as an alternative to a repository.

The AFR means an away from reactor storage. There is effectively no AFR in America, with all storage sites on the reactors’ premises.

Holtec has already licensed transportation casks for shipping canisters from ISFSIs and they can be made available as soon as the U.S. Department of Energy is ready to ship fuel to a repository.

The U.S. Government, through the U.S. Department of Energy, has, by law, the ultimate responsible for the transportation and final disposition of spent nuclear fuel. In support of this, Holtec International and its partner, the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA), LLC, have launched the licensing of an autonomous consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in southeastern New Mexico on land owned by ELEA, LLC. The facility, named HI-STORE CISF, will provide a significant step on the path to the Federal Government’s long standing obligation for disposition of used nuclear fuel by providing a safe, secure, temporary, retrievable, and centralized facility for storage of used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste until such time that a permanent solution is available. The principal goal of the HI-STORE CISF is to provide a site to aggregate the used nuclear fuel canisters presently stored across the country into one secure location.

CIS is an acronym of consolidated interim storage. A CIS is also a monitored facility, i.e., a MRS. The DOE used the term CIS in its policy announcement on interim storage of used nuclear fuel.

Holtec International and its partner, the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA), LLC, have launched the licensing of an autonomous consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in southeastern New Mexico on land owned by ELEA, LLC. The facility, named HI-STORE CISF, will provide a significant step on the path to the Federal Government’s long standing obligation for disposition of used nuclear fuel by providing a safe, secure, temporary, retrievable, and centralized facility for storage of used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste until such time that a permanent solution is available. The HI-STORE CISF provides a site to aggregate the used nuclear fuel canisters presently stored across the country at independent used fuel storage installations into one secure location.

The license application for the HI-STORE CISF was submitted to the USNRC on March 31, 2017 and accepted by the USNRC in February 2018 (USNRC Docket No. 72-1051). It is anticipated that the HI-STORE CISF license will be issued by the NRC in mid-2021. The HI-STORE CISF will utilize Holtec’s licensed HI-STORM UMAX, an underground dry storage system engineered and sized to hold all currently licensed dry spent fuel storage canisters throughout the U.S.

The initial application for the HI-STORE facility includes storage of up to 8,680 metric tons of uranium in commercial used fuel (500 canisters) with future amendments for additional canisters up to 10,000 storage locations. The U.S. currently has more than 80,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel in storage and more is being generated every day at a rate of 2,000 metric-tons per year.

Yes, Holtec is the largest spent fuel vendor in the country. Of the 120 commercial nuclear plants (operating and shutdown), 59% rely on Holtec’s technology for spent fuel storage and transportation. From an operating plant perspective, 64% of the 95 operating commercial nuclear plants use Holtec’s technology for spent fuel storage and transportation.

Worldwide, over 130 nuclear plants rely on Holtec’s technology for spent fuel storage and transportation. In addition, over 35 nuclear plants worldwide currently rely on Holtec to perform the loading services of the Holtec supplied spent fuel storage systems.

Protection of the environment and safety of the local community during decommissioning are Holtec’s foremost objectives. Our procedures and practices are geared to ensure public health and safety as we safely and efficiently decommission nuclear plants.

Holtec does several things to serve the local communities that differentiate us as a leading decommissioning contractor. From a local perspective, Holtec begins the decommissioning process much sooner helping to maintain jobs and creating additional jobs through the local union halls. From a technology perspective, Holtec has developed new innovative package designs for waste of all different classes (i.e. different levels of radioactivity) that have three to five times the volume capacity being used in the industry today. These super-capacity containers will drastically reduce the number of required shipments (by road, rail or water) to complete any site’s cleanup. Fewer shipments mean less traffic and less burden on the local infrastructure. Another respect in which our decommissioning program is uniquely environment-friendly is our approach to minimize the amount of waste by diligent, surgical separation of the waste categories. Holtec removes the radioactive layer to the extent practicable returning the uncontaminated material to commercial use. This environmentally conscious program of waste segregation will prevent millions of pounds of uncontaminated material from being commingled with contaminated materials.

Since the reactor is no longer running, the risk of an event occurring decreases significantly. This risk decreases even further when the spent fuel is moved into dry storage. Once this occurs, the decommissioning project technically becomes an industrial demolition project.

Yes, Holtec utilizes nuclear science expertise for reactor segmentation. Nuclear scientists calculate the neutron bombardment on the different elevations of the reactor during its operating life very precisely. For this purpose, experimentally validated computer codes are used. This enables Holtec to segregate the reactor vessel parts by their radioactivity content helping to minimize the quantity of highly activated waste. This effort is another example of our responsible stewardship of the environment.

Holtec has a number of patented transport package designs that the company will use to ship contaminated materials to facilities licensed to receive the respective materials. The package type used for transporting the waste depends on its radioactivity level which is often stated in curies. The package design must meet the NRC and Department of Transportation (DOT) requirements, which essentially guarantee that the dose received by a person in the vicinity of the transport vehicle will be less than the cosmic and terrestrial radiation that bathes the land all hours of the day and night.

The operating procedures, based on Holtec’s Fleet Management Model, emphasize control of contamination as a cardinal guiding principle. An important activity in this area is our effort to remove fuel from the pool and place it into dry storage at the earliest possible date. Holtec has developed an array of high-heat dissipation canisters that comply with the NRC’s regulations, which will enable us to safely move fuel out of the pool on a schedule considered to be impossible only a few years ago. By safely emptying the pool of fuel sooner, the spent fuel pool water can be permanently removed as a potential source of site contamination.

Decommissioning activities are not expected to impact the pipelines or transmission lines near the site. Should remediation require clean-up in the areas adjacent to these utilities, we will coordinate with the utility to ensure the work is performed in a safe and compliant manner. Decommissioning activities will be carried out under controlled work processes and procedures that will ensure no vital systems, structures or components at the site (such as gas lines and power transmission lines) are damaged or their functionality compromised.

It is highly unlikely a terrorist group could steal used fuel and create a dirty bomb. Robust security measures are required by law at facilities regulated by the U.S. NRC. The specific security capabilities required by the NRC are compartmented, and not available to the general public. It can be said that the measures include a well-trained and armed security force, physical barriers, proper lighting, and intrusion detection and surveillance systems.

Keeping the used fuel at the site means the entire site could not be released for future use. Though other parcels could be released, the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation would remain.  To facilitate moving used fuel offsite, Holtec is in the process of licensing a consolidated interim storage facility called HI-STORE in Southeastern New Mexico,  which can enable every site in the country to ship its used fuel offsite. Holtec expects the NRC to make its licensing decision in 2021. Pending an agreement(s) with the U.S. Department of Energy, nuclear utilities or another funding source, construction could start in 2021/2022 and be complete in 2024. The HI-STORE CIS could be ready to accept its first shipment in 2024.

Dry cask storage is safe for people and the environment. Cask systems are designed to contain radiation, manage heat and prevent nuclear fission. They resist earthquakes, projectiles, tornadoes, floods, temperature extremes and other natural and manmade scenarios. The heat generated by a loaded spent fuel cask is typically less than that given off by a home-heating system. The heat and radiation naturally decrease over time without the need for fans or pumps. The casks are under constant monitoring and surveillance.

The statement that canisters are only designed for 20 to 40 years is not correct. Canisters were initially licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 20 years, since that was considered sufficient at that time; however, the canisters are designed to last for hundreds of years. Several years ago, this maximum licensing period was in fact changed from 20 to 40 years by the NRC. For the first 20 years of use, no monitoring or inspection programs are needed. After the initial licensing period, the vendor can apply for a license renewal for an additional 40 years which requires an adequate aging management program that includes inspections and maintenance.

The canisters that house the spent fuel only contain solid materials that do not generate any hydrogen and are thoroughly dried to avoid hydrogen generation from any remaining water. Further, they are filled with an inert, i.e. non-reactive, gas. A build-up of an explosive situation inside a canister is therefore not possible.

Yes, the warranty covers these items.

There are no exclusions to the warranty.

No, dry storage systems do not have pressure monitoring. The only circumstance in which the pressure inside a canister loaded with spent nuclear fuel would increase is if the cask’s ventilation paths would be blocked; there is no other credible scenario. To ensure that the ventilation paths remain open and clear, the paths are inspected on a regular schedule as mandated by the NRC.

Holtec canisters are designed to sustain significantly more internal pressure than it can ever experience from any of the expected or hypothetical off-normal and accident conditions considered in the safety analyses. Canisters are designed such that even under the assumed worst case accident condition, the rise in the total internal pressure will be only half or less of what the canister is designed to withstand.

The canister is fully welded, and therefore the system does not need or have any seals.

Since there is no credible situation for a pressure increase in a canister loaded with spent fuel, a pressure relief valve is not needed. Additionally, providing a relief valve “just in case” would create a possible vulnerability for leakage for the otherwise leak-tight canister. Therefore, because leak tightness of the canister is an overriding safety consideration, no relief valves are used, since they would provide no benefit and introduce unwanted vulnerabilities.

Several measures are taken during the fuel loading process to ensure there will be no need to re-open a welded canister. It is filled with an ‘inert gas’ (such as Helium), i.e. a gas that does not chemically react and that prevents any corrosion. Each canister is also leak-tested prior to use to ensure the inert environment will remain inside the canister. The inert environment prevents the stored spent fuel from degrading and eliminates the need to inspect the fuel or the interior of the canister.

Cracking of canisters or a crack that grows through the wall are not plausible scenarios. As part of the NRC’s license renewal, the inspection and aging management program requires surface inspections of canisters. If an issue were identified, there would be sufficient time to act, since corrosion is a very slow process. If any crack were to form, it would be detected as part of the inspection program before it could ever go through the wall of the canister. Chloride Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking (CISCC) has been identified as a potential mechanism of a long-term degradation, particularly in a marine environment, and the nuclear industry takes several precautions to prevent any degradation issues. Manufacturing techniques such as the reduced amount of welding needed on the canister and less heat from the welding process, and a robust inspection program are among the actions in place to mitigate CISC.

Holtec casks do not present any risk to the public and are as safe as any other cask system. Holtec casks are licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and designed and analyzed to meet the same stringent safety limits and criteria as all other casks by other suppliers in the United States. In addition to the United States where Holtec holds 13 certifications from the NRC, Holtec’s systems for storage and transport of used nuclear fuel have been vetted and independently accepted by nuclear regulators in 13 different countries.

Absolutely. Holtec’s dry storage and transport systems have been analyzed by agencies such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Electric Power Research Institute, Sandia National Laboratory, as well as regulatory authorities in 13 different countries to validate the robustness of the systems to safely store and transport used nuclear fuel. Per NRC regulations, all security threats including terrorism are considered in the cask system safety analyses.
Holtec’s systems have been analyzed and demonstrated to withstand an aircraft crash. In accordance with the Swiss regulator’s storage certification requirement, a missile test was designed to simulate the impact of a crashing aircraft on the HI-STAR 180 transport cask while in use as a spent fuel storage device. The post-impact inspection of the cask showed that it weathered the impact with large performance margins. Watch the video of this test.

Cracking of canisters or a crack that grows through the wall are not plausible scenarios. In the unlikely event that a crack were to develop, technology is now available that will allow the canister to be repaired in place or repackaged by placing the impacted canister inside another canister. This is done without the need for a spent fuel pool or dry cell.

A cask system failure is not a plausible scenario. A cask system is a passive system meaning it has no active components or moving parts like a motor, pump or cooler that it relies on to function. The canister is filled with inert helium gas so that there is no mechanism for internal degradation of the canister or the used nuclear fuel. The canister is fabricated using high grade nuclear stainless steel; it is a well-known fact that there is no failure mechanism for stainless steel to suddenly fail without any symptoms. In addition, cask systems are required to be monitored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as part of the cask’s aging management program to ensure that degradation, if any is found over the years, is detected and corrected.

No, because the cracking of canisters or a crack that grows through the wall are not plausible scenarios. Since the canister is stored inside the cask overpack containing several layers of structural steel and several feet of concrete, there is no potential path for a leak in the canister to turn into a major radioactive release.

The failure modes of both canister and casks have been studied in detail by cask designers, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and national laboratories and institutes such as the Electric Power Research Institute. These studies have shown that the degradation rate from corrosion is very slow and easily detectable. In addition, the technology is now available that will allow the canister to be repaired in place or repackaged by placing the impacted canister inside another canister.

Holtec’s dry storage systems are extremely robust, able to withstand all kinds of unusual and accident conditions that may be expected, up to and including disasters such as a crashing fighter plane. Under all conditions, the NRC requires dry storage systems to meet NRC safety requirements, including during and after an accident. Accident conditions include events from natural phenomena like earthquakes, burial under debris, lightning strikes, and other phenomena (e.g., seiches, tsunamis, and hurricanes). Principal requirements are that no radioactive material is released and that radiation dose rates remain within safety limits.

No. In the more than 40 years that dry storage systems have been in use, there has never been a release of radioactive material. There have been no known or suspected attempts to sabotage cask storage facilities. Tests on spent fuel and cask components after years in dry storage confirm that the systems are providing safe and secure storage. The NRC also analyzed the risks from loading and storing spent fuel in dry casks and found little to no potential health risks.

Holtec has developed and continues to develop new versions of the HI-STORM canister storage systems that are focused to meet specific user needs. For each site, the company recommends the most appropriate fuel storage system that accords with the architectural constraints of the nuclear plant and system performance requirements. Several plants are now using Holtec’s state of the art canisters with the basket that supports the fuel assemblies inside the canister made from Metamic, an aluminum boron carbide metal matrix composite material. This allows spent fuel that was in the spent fuel pool for less than three years to now being safely stored in the dry cask.

The storage casks are subject to visual surveillance or external temperature measurements on a pre-defined schedule to ensure that the cask’s flow vents are not obstructed. The design of the storage system is such that, absent an obstruction to the ventilation air flow, there is no physical mechanism for the temperature or pressure in the storage canister to rise uncontrollably. Additionally, the HI-STORM cask has been determined to maintain a large margin of safety with respect to the in-canister temperatures and pressures.

Yes, transportation of used nuclear fuel is safe because the shipping packages are very robust and because the shipments are highly regulated by the NRC and the Department of Transportation.

According to a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) report prepared by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory, more than 25,000 shipments of used nuclear fuel have been made worldwide to date, shipping more than 87,000 metric tons of fuel. Review of the data sources shows that all of these shipments were undertaken without any injury or loss of life.

In the U.S., except for a limited amount of transport, the majority of used nuclear fuel remains at the reactor sites. Nevertheless, more than 1,300 used fuel shipments have been completed safely over the past 35 years in the U.S., according to the NRC, with most shipments performed by rail. Thanks to the robust transportation cask designs and stringent safety measures adopted by the industry, every one of these used fuel shipments has been safely completed with no release of radioactivity or environmental damage.

Transportation casks for shipping used nuclear fuel are robustly designed to protect the public from releases of radioactive material in the unlikely event of an accident. The NRC regulates the design and construction of these casks by requiring that the candidate cask must demonstrate that it can survive four successive accident conditions involving free drop, puncture, fire and submersion in water events before it is considered fit for transportation. Casks, such as Holtec’s HI-STAR 190, HI-STAR 100 and HI-STAR 100MB are designed and fabricated with multiple layers of steel, lead and other materials to safely confine the fuel, shield workers and the public from radiation associated with the fuel. Inside the cask, the used nuclear fuel, in solid form, is confined inside a strength-welded canister, allowing no pathway for the radiological matter to escape to the environment. Hence multiple layers of protection stand between the cask’s contents and the environment. Fully loaded casks weigh 125 tons or more for rail shipments. Typically, for every ton of used fuel, a cask has about 4 tons of robust shielding material.

Absolutely. Holtec’s dry storage and transport systems have been analyzed by agencies such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Electric Power Research Institute, Sandia National Laboratory, as well as regulatory authorities in 13 different countries to validate the robustness of the systems to safely store and transport used nuclear fuel. Per NRC regulations, all security threats including terrorism are considered in the cask system safety analyses.

Holtec’s systems have been analyzed and demonstrated to withstand an aircraft crash. In accordance with the Swiss regulator’s storage certification requirement, a missile test was designed to simulate the impact of a crashing aircraft on the HI-STAR 180 transport cask while in use as a spent fuel storage device. The post-impact inspection of the cask showed that it weathered the impact with large performance margins. Watch the video of this test.

Transportation of used nuclear fuel is strictly regulated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Transportation containers are designed to protect the public from releases of radioactive material in the unlikely event of an accident. The NRC approves the design, fabrication, use and maintenance of shipping containers and regulates security of the spent fuel. The U.S. Department of Transportation regulates the shipping routes and transportation conveyances. Under current law, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for shipping the used fuel from nuclear power plant sites to a specially designed repository for storage. According to the NRC, over the last 40 years, thousands of shipments of commercially generated spent nuclear fuel have been made throughout the U.S. without causing any radiological releases to the environment or harm to the public.

Each operating railroad is responsible for inspection and maintenance of track. This is audited by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) using established, procedure-based audit methods to assure compliance with regulations and performance requirements. Industry leads can be leased or owned by a specific customer who would then be responsible for inspection and maintenance of the leased portion of track.

Railroads are owned privately, and each individual railroad is responsible for maintenance and upkeep of their tracks. Industry tracks are sometimes in the ownership of the licensee or storage facility owner and maintenance is conducted through an agreement with the railroad. The federal government offers grants to build new track or repair track.

There is an upper limit of radiation dose emitting from the transport package that is limited by federal regulation. This creates an upper bounding radiation limit, such that no member of the public can be exposed to unacceptable levels of radiation no matter how close they are to the transport package, e.g., in the rail yard, at railway crossings etc. The limit is only slightly more than a typical chest x-ray and is not considered harmful. Actual dose rates vary depending on the cask, but are typically much lower than the upper limit. The NRC conducted a comprehensive risk analysis (NUREG – 2125, Spent Fuel Transportation Risk Assessment) for the transportation of spent nuclear fuel under routine and accident conditions. The analysis concluded the radiation dose to members of the public for routine spent fuels shipments would be less than 1/1000 the amount of radiation the general public receives from background radiation annually.

The American Association of Railroads (AAR) documents “Recommended Railroad Operating Practices for Transportation of Hazardous Materials” and “Railroad Hazmat Resource Tool Kit” outlining emergency response related to rail transport are provided below.

“AAR Circular OT-55-Q “Recommended Railroad Operating Practices for Transportation of Hazardous Materials”
“AAR BOE “Railroad Hazmat Resource Tool Kit”

Yes. Under NRC regulations, the shipper is required to conduct preplanning and provide advanced notification to any state that the shipment will enter or pass through.

Shipments of this type are carefully orchestrated and are route-controlled. The states are involved and pre-approve the transportation plans. States work with the shipper and rail carrier to determine the most practical and safe location to perform inspections.

The terms used nuclear fuel and spent nuclear fuel are both used to describe nuclear fuel that has been used in a nuclear reactor. There is no liquid in used nuclear fuel. Used nuclear fuel is a solid material, in the form of ceramic pellets. Each pellet is about the size of a pencil eraser. The pellets are stacked inside long metal zirconium tubes approximately 12 feet long, which are sealed on each end to form a fuel rod. Between 100 and 300 fuel rods are arranged in a square pattern to form a fuel assembly. Depending on the design, a reactor core may have between 120 and 800 fuel assemblies. A used fuel storage cask may contain up to 89 fuel assemblies. Learn more about nuclear fuel by watching this Nuclear Energy Institute video.

A single nuclear fuel assembly spends around five years in the reactor of a nuclear plant, creating heat that is then turned into electricity. Typically, every 18 to 24 months, a nuclear plant stops generating electricity to replace a third of the fuel assemblies in the reactor with fresh ones. The assemblies removed from the reactor are then stored in a large body of water inside the nuclear plant, called the spent fuel pool, where they cool over time. The water also shields the workers from the radiation that comes from the fuel assemblies. Due to the use of water, this storage method is also often referred to as “wet storage”.

After the used fuel assemblies have cooled for at least one year, they may be moved from the pool to canisters made from stainless steel filled with an ‘inert gas,’ i.e. a gas that does not chemically react and prevents corrosion of the content of the canister, such as Helium. The steel canisters are strength welded closed in order to provide a leak-tight containment of the used nuclear fuel and are placed inside large robust casks made of steel and concrete.

The steel and concrete casks surrounding the canister provide radiation shielding to workers and the public from the stored used nuclear fuel, and physical protection of the fuel. The casks are then initially stored at the site of the nuclear plant. Since this storage method does not require any water, it is often referred to as “dry storage”. It also does not use any fans for cooling and electric power is not required.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) codified the U.S. Department of Energy’s responsibility for developing a geologic repository for used nuclear fuel. In 2002, the president and Congress approved Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the site for this repository. In 2010, however, the DOE shut down the Yucca Mountain project without citing any technical or safety issues. In contrast, decades of scientific study had consistently concluded that the proposed repository could safely protect future generations. At the time, $12 billion had already been spent on Yucca Mountain and 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel were in temporary storage across 39 states. In 2014, a federal court ordered the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete safety and environmental reviews of the site. While these reviews have since concluded that Yucca Mountain complies with all regulations, a final decision awaits an extensive formal hearing. That hearing can’t happen until Congress funds it.

In response, the industry began responding through what is known as interim/temporary fuel storage. Title 10, Part 51.23(a), Code of Federal Regulations. § 51.23 Temporary storage of spent fuel after cessation of reactor operation–generic determination of no significant environmental impact. (a) The Commission has made a generic determination that, if necessary, spent fuel generated in any reactor can be stored safely and without significant environmental impacts for at least 30 years beyond the licensed life for operation (which may include the term of a revised or renewed license) of that reactor at its spent fuel storage basin or at either onsite or offsite independent spent fuel storage installations. Further, the Commission believes there is reasonable assurance that at least one mined geologic repository will be available within the first quarter of the twenty-first century, and sufficient repository capacity will be available within 30 years beyond the licensed life for operation of any reactor to dispose of the commercial high-level waste and spent fuel originating in such reactor and generated up to that time.

Every nuclear plant stores used fuel on site as the industry awaits the completion of either a consolidated interim storage site or permanent disposal repository by the federal government. Taxpayers are assessed $800 million annually ($2.2 million per day) because of the federal government’s failure to meet its obligation to dispose of used fuel that currently resides at nuclear plants across the country creating a liability that has cost American taxpayers $6.9 billion through 2017.

By their own estimates, the DOE indicates that their total liability is estimated at $34.1 billion. If the government does not find a way to begin satisfying their obligations by 2022. the DOE estimates that the liability will increase by approximately $500 million per year This money is paid out of the U.S. Treasury’s Judgement Fund – a source funded by all taxpayers, regardless of their source of energy, not through an appropriations process or from utility ratepayers.

On-site storage of used nuclear fuel at nuclear power plants was never intended to be permanent. Spent nuclear fuel is being stored at 121 different facilities in 39 states. Each facility has its own security, operations, and maintenance requirements. A single facility would be beneficial because it would consolidate security, operations, and maintenance resources. Also, at some nuclear plant sites, all that remains following the decommissioning and dismantlement of the reactor and other buildings, is the used nuclear fuel. These communities cannot redevelop these former plant sites, resulting in the loss of millions in tax revenue every year.

Holtec International launched the licensing of an autonomous consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in southeastern New Mexico on land owned by Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA), LLC. The facility, named HI-STORE CISF, will provide a significant step on the path to the Federal Government’s long standing obligation for disposition of used nuclear fuel by providing a safe, secure, temporary, retrievable, and centralized facility for storage of used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste until such time that a permanent solution is available. The HI-STORE CISF provides a site to aggregate the used nuclear fuel canisters presently stored across the country at independent used fuel storage installations into one secure location.

The license application for the HI-STORE CISF was submitted to the USNRC on March 31, 2017 and accepted by the USNRC in February 2018 (USNRC Docket No. 72-1051). It is anticipated that the HI-STORE CISF  license will be issued in early 2022. The HI-STORE CISF will utilize Holtec’s licensed HI-STORM UMAX, an underground dry storage system engineered and sized to hold all currently licensed dry spent fuel storage canisters throughout the U.S.

The initial application for the HI-STORE facility includes storage of up to 8,680 metric tons of uranium in commercial used fuel (500 canisters) with future amendments for additional canisters up to 10,000 storage locations. The U.S. currently has more than 80,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel in storage and more is being generated every day at a rate of 2,000 metric-tons per year.

HI-STORE will employ Holtec’s HI-STORM UMAX used fuel storage system, the most secure and safest technology licensed by the USNRC, which will store the canisters bearing the used fuel in a dry, below-grade configuration with unrestricted capability to retrieve and move the canisters at any time during the facility’s life. The HI-STORM UMAX technology was first licensed by the USNRC in 2015 (USNRC Docket No 72-1040). Already in use in the U.S., the HI-STORM UMAX is a system that provides the utmost protection to the environment and superior radiation shielding for workers and the public by storing the canisters in below-grade steel enclosures covered by heavy lids, where each enclosure contains one canister in a vertical orientation.

No. HI-STORE CISF is temporary storage, complementary to a permanent deep repository. Under federal law, DOE has the undivided responsibility to perform construction of and transport the fuel to the repository.

The life expectancy of the stainless-steel canister, which is the primary containment of the spent nuclear fuel, varies based on the environment. Conservative estimates put the life expectancy of the canister at hundreds of years. As part of the aging management program, there are regular inspections of canisters that will check the entire surface of a single canister, or part of the surface of multiple canisters. If these inspections would ever indicate an imperfection or crack, canisters would be re-packaged before a crack could propagate and a leak occur. There is sufficient time to re-package the canister since it would take many years for a crack to develop into a leak.

Under federal law, a decommissioning fund is established to cover the cost of demolition and remediation of the facility once it reaches the end of its life.

Holtec will be responsible for decommissioning and restoring the HI-STORE site once the fuel is finally removed. Like an operating nuclear plant, Holtec will be required by the NRC to establish a decommissioning trust fund and maintain certain funding levels that would allow decommissioning to proceed when needed. The local community does not bear any responsibility for funding the trust fund nor decommissioning.

Yes, the Price Anderson Act does apply. Operating and non-operating nuclear plants as well as some other facilities are covered under the Price Anderson Act. The act includes transportation of nuclear fuel to and from a covered facility.

Yes. Robust security measures are required by law at facilities regulated by the U.S. NRC. Beginning with Holtec’s storage technology, the HI-STORM UMAX is an inherently secure, robust structure below grade made of concrete with silos where the canister containing the used fuel will reside. The HI-STORM UMAX is built to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. Storing the strength-welded canister containing the used fuel completely below grade removes any target that an airplane or missile could hit. The specific security capabilities required by the U.S. NRC are compartmented, and not available to the general public. It can be said that the measures will include a well-trained and armed security force, physical barriers, proper lighting, and intrusion detection and surveillance systems. Holtec will also coordinate security with Local, State, and Federal Agencies. Because the HI-STORM UMAX is a very low-profile storage system (less than 3 feet from the ground) a security guard can see from one side of the storage facility to the other with no obstructions.

An airplane or other missile will not damage the used nuclear fuel. The HI-STORM UMAX, the used fuel storage system to be used at the HI-STORE CISF, is an inherently secure and robust structure. The silos where the canister containing the used fuel will reside are below grade and made of steel surrounded by concrete. The HI-STORM UMAX is built to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. Storing the strength-welded canister containing the used fuel completely below grade removes any target that an airplane or missile could hit.

No, not possible.

To meet the transport constraints, the heat load of each canister at HI-STORE will be less than 60% of the NRC-certified value for on-site storage. Thus, the heat generation rate in any canister stored at HI STORE CISF will be well below the thermal capacity of the storage system when it is first installed and then continuously decline from that point in accordance with the natural law of radioactive decay. The reduced heat load at the HI-STORE CISF ensures that a canister’s failure causing radiological release is not possible even if a saboteur were to miraculously evade the security forces and intrusion sensors, and have possession of the specially-engineered hardware that would be needed to block the air flow.

The basic concept of the canister-based used fuel storage system is that fuel is packaged once, in a strength-welded canister. Hence, there is no need for re-packaging fuel at the HI-STORE CISF.

Yes, Holtec International has, for over the past three decades, undergone rigorous inspections by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, its clients, and nuclear industry organizations, passing every inspection since its inception, no exceptions. Holtec International has an impeccable safety record. None of Holtec’s equipment has ever experienced a safety issue, leaked or caused any injury.

No, there are no damaged, cracked or gouged canisters in California or any nuclear plant using Holtec’s used fuel storage systems. The Holtec canisters are designed to meet or exceed the standards set forth by the NRC. The materials, fabrication procedures, and personnel qualifications are closely controlled to ensure high and reproducible quality. Using these tenants, the NRC approved and certified our technology. The canisters themselves are subjected to multiple tests in the factory including radiography and leak testing before the canisters are sent to a nuclear plant for use. In the field (at the plant), after the used nuclear fuel is loaded into the canister, the canister lid is welded to the canister body and is subjected to multiple tests including liquid penetrant and helium leak testing. Canisters are required to pass all tests prior to being placed into storage. Some time ago, Holtec voluntarily inspected two canisters. No abnormalities in the canisters were found. These inspections, although not required, lent credence to Holtec’s fabrication standards and practices. In the future, aging management programs, mandated and approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, will provide assurance the canisters do not develop cracks or leaks over the many years that the canisters will be in use.

No, they are not too heavy. Weight capacity of rail systems is specified as weight per axle of the rail car. A rail car with 8 or 12 axles can carry a cask without exceeding any limitation. A locomotive easily weighs 400,000 pounds, similar to a cask. So, weights such as that are nothing unusual for the rail system.

The final repository will most likely be in the western U.S. So, we will actually be transporting it one time to the western destination with a temporary stop over while waiting for the repository to be completed. There will be very little difference in the distance traveled, and thus, the risk calculations change very little.

No, absolutely not. While it is correct that used nuclear fuel contains plutonium, it is in a state and configuration that makes a nuclear explosion physically impossible.

The HI-STORM UMAX lid is designed to direct storm water and, in northern climates, snow/ice melt-off away from the lid where the air passages are located. The concrete pad is sloped to direct water away from the lid. Moreover, any minor amount of moisture that may intrude into the storage cavity due to wind-driven rain will evaporate in a short period of time due to the continuous movement of heated air in the storage cavity. Also, all inlets and outlets are equipped with screens that prevent any significant debris from entering the vaults.

A brush fire would not have any impact on HI-STORE. The HI-STORM UMAX system is designed to resist natural and manmade events like fire, earthquakes, projectiles, tornados, floods and other extremes. As part of the final safety analysis report for HI-STORM UMAX, the NRC previously concluded the design basis fire accident does not affect the safe operation of the HI-system. If a brush fire were to occur near the HI-STORE facility, the potential of the fire spreading to the site is also extremely remote since combustible materials are not allowed to be stored in the area. The NRC will further examine this issue as part of its final safety evaluation report for HI-STORE.

If you were to stand at a rail road crossing and a train with 10 spent fuel casks would slowly roll past you (at 3 miles per hour) you would receive less than 0.03 mrem of radiation. This amount of radiation is not measurable compared to background radiation levels. This is less than 1/10,000th of the typical annual dose from the background radiation that every person experiences in the US, which is about 360 mrem. This is also less than 1/10th of what a person receives during just 1 hour traveling by plane, which is about 0.5 mrem. Hence the dose rate from rail transport of used nuclear fuel casks, even at close distance, is negligible compared to other radiation sources that are part of everyday life.

If you were to stand at the site boundary of the HI-STORE CISF for 24 hours, you would receive less than 0.03 mrem of radiation. This amount of radiation is not measurable compared to background radiation levels. This is less than 1/10,000th of the typical annual dose from the background radiation that every person experiences in the US, which is about 360 mrem. This is also less than 1/10th of what a person receives during just 1 hour traveling by plane, which is about 0.5 mrem. Hence the dose rate from the facility, even at close distance, is negligible compared to other radiation sources that are part of everyday life.

No. The ground load will remain substantially unchanged after the subterranean storage system is installed and placed in service with loaded multi- purpose canisters. This is because the mass of the earth  removed to make the canister storage cavity approximates  the combined mass of the constructed storage cavity and its stored multi-purpose canister. Therefore, long-term settlement of the site caused by a large increase in the load overburden is not possible.

Holtec’s NRC-certified transport casks carry the used fuel inside an all-welded stainless-steel vessel known as multi-purpose canisters (MPCs). The MPC is, however, optional for transporting used fuel in a transport cask. The transport cask is designed to carry “bare” fuel without any MPC inside it. The transport cask, certified by the USNRC, must be demonstrated to maintain the radiological matter contained in the used fuel’s rods inside the cask’s internal space under a set of punishing accidents such as free fall simulating a hard collision, fire, and deep submersion. In other words, the transport casks are licensed by the NRC to serve as an autonomously leak-tight fortress capable of preventing leakage of its internal gaseous matter to the environment under a series of bounding accidents without any reliance on a leak-tight MPC which may be inside it. For the HI-STORE CIS facility, adopting an even more stringent posture of safety, Holtec has mandated that a shipment of used fuel can occur only after the fuel has been packaged in an MPC. This voluntary measure amounts to sequestering the used fuel inside the welded Canister which is itself sequestered from the environment by the corpus of the transport cask. Together, the MPC and the transport cask reduce the probability of a radiological release to the environment to several orders of magnitude below what is considered “non-credible” under USNRC’s definition.

In fact, the MPC has been recognized as an exceedingly stout barrier against leakage able to withstand deceleration loads in the wake of a postulated accident so severe that it would totally demolish the transport car and its associated structures! The railroad cars are restricted from traveling at a speed limit that is substantially below the level for which the cask is qualified. A Holtec paper, “MPC: A bulwark of safety in the post-9/11 age,” provides additional technical information on the invulnerability of the MPC to severe accidents here.

To summarize, the maximum impact load that can conceivably develop from a transport accident is well below the structural capacity of the cask to maintain leak-tightness and an order of magnitude below the capacity of its enclosed MPC to maintain radiological confinement. Therefore, the risk of radiological release from an MPC bearing the HI-STAR model cask subject to the most severe transport accident contemplated in the NRC regulations (which bound those possible in practice) is essentially zero.

Furthermore, the assessment of a cask encountering a severe transport accident has been estimated by the authorities to be “non-credible.” Industry experience with millions of miles of cask transports over the past four decades bear out the above estimate.

Thus, the occurrence of a radiological release from a Holtec cask must overcome three non-credible independent probabilities that are stacked against it. First, the occurrence of a transport accident would be a complete departure from the industry experience, and then if the transport accident is (counter-factually) assumed, two non-credible occurrences of failure of the transport cask’s containment boundary, and failure of the MPC confinement structure both must occur as a result of the accident to produce a release. Because of the above-described cascade of non-credible possibilities, the scenario of a radiological release from a Holtec transport cask is best termed as “impossible.”

At the federal government level, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must approve the license application submitted by Holtec International. Regulatory requirements would be imposed on all aspects of the operation, including security and liability. Oversight would include periodic inspections and audits conducted by regional inspectors. All of this occurs at operating interim storage facilities across the country today. Construction and environmental permits will be approved at the state and local levels.

SMR-300 is a small modular pressurized water nuclear power plant. The SMR-300 produces approximately 320 Megawatts electric (MWe) power or 1050 Megawatts thermal (MWt) for process applications. The SMR-300 represents innovation through simplification and use of entirely passive safety systems, while relying on decades of proven operating history for the existing commercial pressurized light water reactor fleet. Reactors dubbed to be modular rely on the plant being substantially manufactured in a factory environment and are comprised of pre-built assemblies to reduce on-site construction cost and schedule.

The principal strengths of SMR-300 include its inherent safety, robust security, simple and reliable operation, flexible application, rapid constructibility and competitive economics.

The SMR-300 design is driven by the principal criterion that all safety systems must be passive. All safety systems of the plant exist inside containment and are protected further by the concrete enclosure structure.

Simplicity of design and automated control results in lower operating and maintenance burden, and decreases with the need for a large pool of nuclear scientists and engineers to operate the plant, making SMR-300 a viable source of energy for developing economies.

The SMR-300 is highly flexible for location and utility. It has a small footprint, can use air-cooled condensers in water scarce locations if needed, and can be placed in both highly populated or remote locations. Because SMR-300 is walk-away safe, it can be sited next to population centers without any threat to the local environment or populace. Placing SMR-300 close to cities and towns will reduce transmission losses and enable the plant’s workers to live in the local community.

An SMR-300 installation takes up approximately 15 acres (6 hectares) of land for a single unit deployment. This is a fraction of the land area required by other renewable energy sources and more compact than other nuclear plants. No emergency planning zone is required outside the fence-line, as is typically necessary for larger reactors.

The SMR-300 is an evolutionary design. It uses a conventional fission reactor, with water as the cooling medium, and is designed with six decades of world-wide industrial operating experience with pressurized water reactors. The SMR-300 is advanced in the sense that it represents innovation through simplification and use of entirely passive safety systems, while relying on decades of proven operating history for the existing commercial pressurized light water reactor fleet. Most critically, the nuclear fuel that powers this reactor is commercially available right now and does not require any complicated research.

The tallest SMR-300 plant structure is similar in height to a small city water tower. A significant portion of the SMR-300 power plant lies below grade to improve security and safety aspects of the plant.

Informed by over six decades of lessons learned from reactor operations, SMR-300 is designed to be an extremely safe power plant. Every conceivable catastrophic event, including severe cyclones (hurricanes or typhoons), tsunamis, flood, earthquakes, fire and crashing aircraft, has been considered in SMR-300’s design basis and appropriate features incorporated to ensure that it will withstand these events and prevent any risk to public health and safety.

Passive safety systems ensure the plant’s nuclear fuel is always cooled. Unlike large nuclear power plants, electrical power is not required to ensure that the plant remains safely cooled and contained. The SMR-300 is walk-away safe.

The SMR-300 is walk-away safe because the nuclear plant can keep all its nuclear fuel safe, cool and undamaged within the reactor, spent fuel pool and integrated HI-STORM UMAX (Holtec International Storage Module Underground MAXimum Capacity) underground spent fuel storage canisters, for an unlimited time in the case of any unforeseen catastrophic event. The plant operators are not required to take action to ensure cooling occurs. Under extreme environmental events, like the one that occurred at Fukushima, SMR-300 behaves like a simple, large, passively cooled heat exchanger relying on the same safety principles that Holtec International’s spent fuel storage technology employs at over 100 operating nuclear power plants around the world today.

SMR-300 uses a commonly available nuclear fuel assembly manufactured by many qualified suppliers around the world and is commercially available today ‘off the shelf’. The enrichment required for the core design is typical for light water reactors operating now, without any requirement for additional supply chain development.

Unlike currently operating nuclear reactors, SMR-300 has been designed to store the used fuel produced over the entire operating lifetime of the plant in on-site subterranean cavities in Holtec’s HI-STORM UMAX system, which is licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and has been deployed for commercial use. This occupies a small parcel of land in the plant’s backyard. The storage cavities contain the irradiated fuel bundles in welded multi-purpose canisters, with over-packs hardened against extenuating threats such as a crashing aircraft or an incident missile.

Spent fuel from the entire 80-year design life of the SMR-300 can be stored in just 24 HI-STORM UMAX modules. For context, the image below depicts a real HI-STORM UMAX installation at a currently operating nuclear power plant. For 80 years of operation, a HI-STORM UMAX installation just half this size is required to safely store the SMR-300’s spent fuel on-site until final storage or reprocessing is required.

Yes, SMR-300 does not need to be sited next to a river, a lake or sea unlike typical power plants. It is engineered to have an option to reject its waste heat directly to the atmosphere by utilizing its cutting-edge capability to operate using an air-cooling system in lieu of a large quantity of water. With the flexibility to use air-cooled condensers, SMR-300 can be deployed in the most arid regions of the world, such as a desert.

SMR-300 is engineered to be an extremely secure and modern industrial installation. Consider the following:

• SMR-300 protects its safety systems within a monolithic steel and concrete shield, impregnable to natural disasters or security threats.
• SMR-300’s components lie deep below the ground, inaccessible to direct assault by drones or missiles.
• SMR-300’s small land area requirement and simple plant perimeter design lends itself to full monitoring and surveillance using a small security force. The small land area is also readily adapted to a remote or automated security monitoring program.
• During operation, SMR-300’s containment is closed and secured, protecting the reactor core and spent fuel pool.
• The SMR-300 control room is underground, with multiple layers of security. Further, the control system is distributed to eliminate the possibility of catastrophic failures and designed to ensure that any human action, intentional or not, is unable to override the safe operation of the plant.

Yes, SMR-300 is intended to serve as a distributed energy source, reducing with the need for expensive high capacity transmission lines over long distances. This makes multiple-unit based SMR-300 electricity supply more resistant to natural disasters or acts of sabotage and eliminates the need and cost of building traditional grid infrastructures. Distributed power provided by a string of SMR-300s will promote grid stability and render a nation’s power supply very resistant to disruption.

The SMR-300 design contributes to substantial savings in equipment capital and maintenance costs. The SMR-300 ensures that systems, structures, and components across the plant are designed and right-sized for their functions, and incorporate a level of passivity that achieves a vastly safer plant without the need for additional redundancy.

Additionally, SMR 300s will be substantially factory built and site assembled. To facilitate shop manufacturing, all SMR-300 components are limited to 12 feet in diameter and practical maximum weights to facilitate flexible shipping options to destinations around the world. Minimizing shipping limitations for massive large power plant components introduces significant cost savings.

At a minimum, the service life of SMR-300 is 80 years. With proper pro-active maintenance, a 100-year service life should be achievable.

Yes, SMR-300 has been designed to support the safe and efficient decommissioning of the plant in the future:

• Reduction of the radiation source (the reactor’s nuclear core is a fraction the size of that present in large conventional nuclear power plants)
• Plant layouts that limit the spread of contamination facilitate dismantling and decontamination of radioactive equipment (SMR-300 is designed to simply remove all major equipment out of the containment building through its hatches and flanged lids)
• Simplification of waste management systems and careful management of radiological data and design information to facilitate decommissioning
• Further, the design of SMR-300 is supported by the leadership and experience from Holtec subsidiary Holtec Decommissioning International (HDI).

The SMR-300 plant is configured to mitigate the contributing causes that are known to induce aging through:

• Minimized cumulative radiation (fluence) on load bearing parts and welds.
• Reduced generation of crud with its high corrosive species.
• Minimization of mechanical aging effects such as flow induced vibration, metal fatigue and the like.
• Maintaining material temperatures well below the limit at which adverse effects such as stress corrosion cracking may occur.
• Instrumentation and control systems are designed with a strategy to manage obsolescence over plant life.
• All components are designed for either full-service life or are readily accessible for replacement without major plant modifications.

Holtec is also an industry leader in designing nuclear systems to withstand catastrophic natural events such as severe flood, tornado, tsunami, fire, earthquake, and security threats such as a crashing aircraft or missiles, providing absolute and certain safety to the surrounding communities and environment.

Holtec’s mission is to provide energy starved areas of the world with safe, secure, affordable pollution-free energy, through hundreds of SMR-300s operating around the world.

To a developing world, SMR-300 will provide grid stability and security of energy supply to nations’ critical infrastructure. Further, SMR-300 is a critical component to combating climate change via transition to zero-carbon power generation sources.

The voltage and frequency of a power grid is held in equilibrium by ensuring that the electricity produced equals the electricity demanded and there is sufficient inertia from power generators. The SMR-300 is right-sized to ensure that any one unit being out of service will not create a large grid disturbance. Further, the SMR-300 delivers constant, high-reliability power using proven pressurized water reactor (PWR) technology. Its large, synchronous generator contributes rotational inertia, helping to resist rapid changes in grid frequency. The reactor’s continuous thermal output and steady turbine operation ensure voltage regulation through consistent reactive power support. This stability makes the SMR-300 an ideal anchor for modern, renewables-heavy grids.

Yes. An owner may decide what portion of the energy output of the plant will be used to produce electricity and what fraction will be directed for other purposes, such as desalination. Because the secondary loop of the SMR-300 is entirely clean of radioactivity and the plant has a relatively high thermal power, the design is amenable for applications requiring process steam such as industrial processes, district heating, or desalination. The use of the energy from SMR-300 is entirely up to the owner.

As America’s largest capital nuclear equipment exporter, Holtec International has significant experience with major nuclear equipment manufacturing. The company has completed construction of the world’s first dedicated SMR manufacturing facility in Camden, New Jersey. The factory has the lifting, cutting, welding, cladding, drilling, machining, inspection, and shipping capacities necessary for all of the SMR-300’s capital nuclear equipment fabrication needs. This state-of-the-art facility is expected to be the first of multiple such facilities, both in the United States and around the world.

A short list of compelling features includes:

• Small power, compact architecture, and complete reliance on passive safety to ensure certain safety for the public and plant personnel.
• The compact architecture enables modularity of fabrication, facilitating localization of manufacture for industrial development, along with implementation of higher quality standards than stick-built traditional plants.
• Lower power than existing large light and heavy water reactors, leading to a significant reduction of the source term as well as smaller radioactive inventory in the reactor and spent fuel pool.
• Underground location of the reactor unit, providing incredible protection from natural (e.g. seismic or tsunami according to the location) or man-made (e.g. aircraft impact) hazards.
• The modular design and small size lends itself ideally to having multiple units on the same site.
• Lower requirement for access to cooling water – therefore suitable for remote regions, or those with little or no access to precious or external water sources, and for specific applications such as mining or desalination.
• Long operating life, with an initial design life of 80 years and the potential to extend well beyond that.
• Produces clean, carbon-free heat or energy to support national interests in combating climate change.

SMR-300 is unique amongst small modular reactors and large western commercial nuclear power plants. It is designed to ensure that 100% of the plant’s irradiated fuel is safely protected via passive safety systems inside its robust containment enclosure system. This protects the public and the environment from the harmful effects of radiation even in the case of the worst hypothetical accident. Conventional light water and advanced reactors store spent fuel outside of their containments, leaving those large source term systems more susceptible to exposure and release than the systems and commodities inside containments. Learning from the Fukushima disaster, Holtec includes the spent fuel pool inside containment to passively and indefinitely protect ALL of the plant’s fuel in the case of an accident.

Holtec will continue to ensure that the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation remains in a safe, secure, and environmentally responsible manner.  The federal government has the obligation to take receipt of used fuel located at nuclear stations across the country. At this time, there is no clear timeline for that action. Holtec has submitted its license application to build a consolidated interim storage facility for spent fuel called HI-STORE in New Mexico. Big Rock Point’s used fuel could be relocated to this facility.

Part of decommissioning is moving the spent nuclear fuel from storage in the spent fuel pool to the dry storage facility called an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (or ISFSI) which used to take five or more years after reactor shutdown. Holtec has dry storage systems, which allow the transfer to be safely completed in less than three years. The rest of the decommissioning activities can be safely started sooner and be performed more efficiently with the spent nuclear fuel on the ISFSI.

Holtec continues to explore all options for the safe and efficient removal of materials from the site including trucking and barging of waste. Once shipping decisions are finalized this will be shared with the local community. All shipping decisions will put safety first and would be done to minimize impact on the local community and environment.

Holtec’s decommissioning team has a National Labor Agreement (NLA) in place with the Operating Engineers of North America; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America; and the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. Working through these unions, local union halls near Pilgrim have been identified to provide the necessary skilled labor needed to safely execute and complete decommissioning.

Holtec has no immediate plans for any of the property at this time. As decommissioning proceeds further along, Holtec looks forward to partnering with the local community about possible future uses.

To learn more about Pilgrim decommissioning, visit www.pilgrimdecom.com.

Sixty-one casks will be used to store Pilgrim’s spent nuclear fuel.

The design, manufacturing, deployment, monitoring and maintenance activities for the HI-STORM 100 system are all conducted to ensure the safe storage of spent nuclear fuel. The aging management plan is under currently (July 2020) review by the NRC. Generally speaking, the first, baseline, inspection will occur within 365 days of the 20th anniversary of the initial overpack loading at the site; in the case of Pilgrim, the first inspection will occur in 2034. While the timeframe for actual inspection is some time away, the operations department performs daily visual inspections of the casks on the pad. In addition, we continue to collect and analyze new information on aging effects based on inspection findings and/or industry operating experience to ensure the continued safe storage of spent nuclear fuel. For more information, click here for a non-proprietary version of the renewal application for the casks. Finally, the Energy Power Research Institute Dry Canister Storage Canister Inspection from Diablo Canyon can be found here, as well as an update on Inspections of Dry Storage Canisters here.

There are no safety concerns with leaving the HI-STORM systems where they are currently located (the current spent fuel storage pad is located at 25.5 feet above mean sea level). Holtec’s dry storage systems are extremely robust and can withstand all kinds of unusual and accident conditions including events from natural phenomena like flooding, earthquakes, burial under debris, lightning strikes, and other phenomena (e.g., seiches, tsunamis, and hurricanes). Holtec is currently building a new, larger pad to accommodate a complete defueling of the Pilgrim spent fuel pool by 2022. This pad will be located at 75 feet above mean sea level. The new location was chosen for a number of reasons, including environmental concerns, but is focused on allowing prompt decommissioning in a safe and efficient manner.

As long as used fuel remains on site, a highly trained security force and a fortified security perimeter will remain in place according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations. In addition, Holtec is committed to working with the community to provide additional screening from the roadway.

The federal government has the obligation to take receipt of used fuel located at nuclear stations across the industry. At this time, there is no clear timeline for that action. Holtec has submitted its license application to build a consolidated interim storage facility for spent fuel called HI-STORE in New Mexico. Pilgrim’s used fuel could be relocated to this facility.

The Division of Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation, Interim Staff Guidance (ISG) – 1, Revision 2, Classifying the Condition of Spent Nuclear Fuel for Interim Storage and Transportation Based on Function (ML071420268), provides guidance on classifying spent nuclear fuel as either (1) damaged, (2) undamaged, or (3) intact, before interim storage or transportation. View ISG-1, Rev. 2 here.

The HI-STORM 100 storage system and the HI-STAR 100 transportation system are each licensed to store and transport damaged fuel and fuel debris, respectively. Damaged fuel and fuel debris must be loaded into a Damaged Fuel Container (DFC) for storage in the MPC and subsequent transportation in the HI-STAR 100 overpack. The MPC-68 is qualified to accommodate up to 16 DFCs in each MPC-68 canister.

In accordance with ISG-1 Rev. 2., for Pilgrim, Holtec was provided a report of the spent fuel classification program conducted by the previous owner. Holtec has validated the accuracy of the data and concurs with the classification. A summary of the spent fuel classification program follows:

• In accordance with the definition in ISG-1 Rev. 2, review of reactor operating records was conducted to determine suspect assemblies.
• Fuel sipping was conducted to determine if a fuel assembly has damage that exceeds the classification of undamaged fuel.
• If the fuel sipping could not positively determine if a fuel assembly has damage that exceeds the classification of undamaged fuel, then it was conservatively classified as a damaged assembly.

It has been determined that there are 296 damaged fuel assemblies at Pilgrim. No fuel debris has been identified.

To provide the secondary containment that is required by ISG-1 Rev. 2, Holtec uses Damaged Fuel Containers (DFC) for damaged fuel (see photo below). If fuel debris is encountered, the DFC would also be used for fuel debris.

Damaged fuel and fuel debris are placed in a Damaged Fuel Container (DFC) for storage and transport in the MPC. The DFC is licensed for storage in the HI-STORM 100, HI-STORM FW and HI-STORM UMAX and for transport in the HI-STAR 100 and HI-STAR 190.

The emergency planning zone will be reduced to the site boundary on April 1, 2020. This allowance is determined based on careful review and consideration of scientific data related to the risks associated with a potential issue with the spent fuel pool. With the reactor no longer in operation, and the multiple defense in depth options to maintain adequate level in the spent fuel pool, the scientific basis for the reduction is warranted. The change was consistent with other decommissioning plants and was approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Pilgrim has reached agreements with the former EPZ communities for demobilization of the program, while continuing to maintain an agreement with the host community of Plymouth through fuel on the pad which is projected to occur in 2021. Safety and security remain our #1 focus at Pilgrim Station.

Keeping neighbors and stakeholders informed has always been a priority at Pilgrim. Holtec regularly attends and provides information to local and state boards. The Massachusetts Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP), as well as the Plymouth Select Board routinely receive updates on the project. Past NDCAP meetings and information can be found here. In addition PACTV, the local cable access channel, posts each meeting on their YouTube channel for viewing, which can be found here.

Unit 1 shut down in 1974. Unit 2 shut down in April 2020. Unit 3 shut down on April 30, 2021. Holtec International’s subsidiaries completed the acquisition of the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, New York from Entergy Corporation on May 28, 2021.

Entergy sold its subsidiaries that owned Indian Point Energy Center on May 28, 2021 to Holtec International subsidiaries, which plan to complete major decommissioning activities sooner than if Entergy had continued to own the facility. The NRC approved the transfer of Indian Point’s licenses to Holtec in November 2020 and the New York State Public Service Commission approved the transfer on May 19, 2021. The agencies found that Holtec possesses the required technical and financial qualifications to own and decommission Indian Point safely and in accordance with regulatory requirements.

Holtec submitted a Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report (PSDAR) and a Decommissioning Cost Estimate in December 2019. The PSDAR provides a detailed timetable for the project with partial site release expected within 12-15 years.

Based off its Decommissioning Cost Estimate (DCE), Holtec is confident that sufficient funding is available to safely complete decommissioning. Management and use of the Nuclear Decommissioning Trust Funds (DTFs) are regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Though the DTFs are expected to continue to grow, NRC regulations only allow licensees to assume a conservative minimum two percent real rate of return which takes inflation and other cost increases into consideration. In addition, licensees are required to submit an annual report to the NRC on decommissioning costs.

The cash flow analyses submitted by Holtec are conservative in that they do not assume that any costs recovered from the DOE (through litigation or settlement) will be deposited back into the trust fund. Even without taking credit for these DOE recovered costs, the cash flow analyses demonstrate that there are more than sufficient funds in the IPEC DTFs to pay for all estimated license termination/radiological decommissioning, spent fuel management, and site restoration costs.

After Entergy’s acquisition of Indian Point in 2001, New York ratepayers did not bear the risk regarding the adequacy of the Nuclear Decommissioning Trust Funds (DTFs) relative to the eventual costs of decommissioning. Consistent with that allocation of risk, any DTFs remaining after all financial obligations to complete decommissioning have been satisfied will remain with the owner of the trust.

About 300 highly trained individuals work full-time at Indian Point, most of whom worked for the previous owner, Entergy. Holtec is honoring all existing collective bargaining agreements.

Changes to the Indian Point emergency plan will be made with NRC approval, corresponding with the reduced risk of an event at the site through the various stages of decommissioning. With Unit 3 shut down and the reactor permanently defueled, the risk of an event significantly decreases and the Emergency Planning Zone (formerly a 10-mile radius around the plant) eventually will be reduced to the site boundary with NRC approval of the Emergency Plan change. There are still emergency procedures station employees must follow, but they are primarily based on industrial risk, not radiological risk. Any proposed changes would be consistent with other decommissioning plants and require approval by the NRC.

All spent nuclear fuel will be moved out of the spent fuel pools and into dry cask storage by second quarter of 2024; there will be 125 casks in dry storage by the second quarter of 2024.

Yes, monitoring of ground water will be maintained throughout decommissioning and up to the point of the NRC approved partial site release.

Each material and waste type will be managed on site, prepared for shipment and transported in accordance with New York Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Transportation requirements.

All management of materials from the site will meet New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, New York Department of Transportation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and U.S. Department of Transportation requirements. This ensures that all material is managed in accordance with the material category (Solid Waste, Recyclables/Reusables, Hazardous Waste and Radioactive Waste). Final disposition will occur at permitted, licensed and registered facilities.

The types of materials that can be transported by barge are tightly controlled. This includes specific containment requirements, transport safety features, limitation on shipping routes and impacts from weather conditions. In addition, there is required backup equipment for towing and managing buoyance, so that in the unlikely event of a transportation incident, the material will be contained or able to proceed to a safe location for further management.

All materials and waste type will be prepared and transported in accordance with both New York and United States Department of Transportation requirements. These requirements ensure that any hazardous materials are controlled and monitored during transport and any high hazard materials have containers designed to prevent release in accident conditions.

Holtec has no immediate plans for the site at this time.

The Holtec’s HI-STORM 100 systems consist of three main components, which includes the overpack, the Multi-Purpose Canister (MPC) and the lids.

1. Overpack – 27 ¾”
   
   1. Concrete – 27”
   2. Exterior Steel Surround – ¾”
2. Multi-Purpose Canister (MPC) – ½” Stainless Steel
   
   1. This holds the spent fuel inside a basket of stainless steel and a Metamic Neutron absorber.
3. MPC Lid – 9.5” Stainless Steel
4. Overpack Lid – 19” Steel and Concrete

Advances in technology in the industry have shortened the time required for fuel to be stored in the spent fuel pool after leaving the reactor. Advances include the use of new innovative materials used in the construction of the fuel assembly baskets and MPCs.

As an example, our Pilgrim facility in Massachusetts closed in May of 2019, with all fuel removed from the reactor and placed into the pool by mid-June 2019. With the continued use of innovative technologies, Pilgrim will have moved all fuel from the pool and placed on the pad by December 2021.

As indicated in the Safety Evaluation Report, the overpack is designed to become slightly radioactive over time. Although the overpack does become slightly radioactive over time, work activities around an overpack are able to be performed safely with no additional protective measures needed to be taken by personnel.

As part of Holtec’s robust aging management program, there are regularly planned inspections of canisters that will examine the entire surface of the canister. If these inspections find any deficiency with the canister, repacking would occur well in advanced of any deficiencies developing into a leak.

The NRC, as an independent regulator, would act as the check and balance to the robust aging management program Holtec will have in place at IPEC to maintain integrity of the casks.

Safety is our number #1 priority at Holtec.

The process of moving and storing spent nuclear fuel is one that follows rigorous processes and procedures that Holtec has been implementing for more than 30 years. There are multiple back-up systems, including redundant pumps and back-up power supplies, that are put into place to ensure the fuel in the pool remains cool for the needed time until it is safely transferred, underwater, into the MPC before being vacuum dried, welded, backfilled with an inert gas, and loaded into an overpack and safely moved to the ISFSI pad.

The life expectancy of the stainless-steel canister, which is the primary containment of the spent nuclear fuel, varies based on the environment. However, conservative estimates put the life expectancy of the canister at hundreds of years given the system is both robust and has no active components.

Initially, the NRC licenses each system for a 20-year period with the ability, based on aging management program and inspection, to renew the license for an additional 40 years. This renewal process goes through extensive review and inspection.

Yes, Holtec’s overpack can be opened and are opened as part of the aging management program to inspect the MPC.

32 assemblies of IPEC’s fuel can fit in each MPC. Each assembly is made up of fuel rods, and each rod contains uranium-oxide fuel pellets. In the IPEC fuel, there are 225 rods per assembly. 

In the highly unlikely event that a multi-purpose canister (MPC), protected by an overpack with 27 inches of steel and concrete surrounding the MPC were to leak, the temporary solution would be to place the MPC in a HI-STAR 100 transportation overpack.

Because no such leak has ever occurred from a Holtec MPC, with 20 years of system usage, as the licensed owner of the system, as well as the manufacturer of the system, we would work to bring the canister back into the required compliance under NRC regulations. As always, our priority remains on the safe, secure storage of all spent fuel in our systems and pride ourselves on the innovations Holtec has brought to the industry regarding fuel storage.

The owner/license-holder of the ISFSI will be responsible for the aging management program and the inspections, and this is performed under the regulatory jurisdiction of the NRC.

Yes, as part of Holtec’s proposed decommissioning activities, Holtec has considered the impacts from those activities. In the event that the remediation requires clean-up in the areas adjacent to the utilities, we will coordinate with the relevant stakeholders to ensure the work is performed in a manner that is safe and in compliance with all requirements.

Furthermore, all decommissioning activities will be carried out under controlled work processes and procedures that will ensure no vital systems, structures or components at the site (such as gas lines and power transmission lines) are damaged or their functionality compromised. In addition, the location of the IPEC ISFSI pads are not located close to the pipelines on site. The casks are designed and built to resist multiple beyond design basis events including fire, earthquakes, projectiles, tornadoes, floods, temperature extremes and other natural and manmade scenarios.

Site remediation and clean-up are cornerstones of the decommissioning project. We will perform extensive site characterization, based on historical data from Entergy and previous owners, as well as address any information gaps to ensure we identify and remediate all hazards according to state and federal regulations. This characterization and clean-up process will continue for the entirety of the project to meet those requirements to allow for partial site release (everything but the spent fuel pad) and site reuse.

Like Entergy, we do not filter groundwater and will monitor it to understand the characteristics of legacy issues as well as ensure that there are no new leaks or spills. Before the site can be released to be repurposed, Holtec will need to comply with any federal and state environmental requirements.

Fuel of all burnups are processed together for optimized loading, so higher burned fuel is neither loaded earlier nor later than any other fuel.

Holtec, through Holtec Decommissioning International as the licensee, has assumed responsibility to remediate the site to state and federal requirements.

As stated in the PSDAR, Holtec plans to decommission Oyster Creek (with the exception of the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation) on an eight-year schedule to permit NRC partial site release.

Part of decommissioning is moving the spent nuclear fuel from storage in the spent fuel pool to the dry storage facility called an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (or ISFSI) which used to take five or more years after reactor shutdown. Holtec has dry storage systems, which allow the transfer to be safely completed in less than three years. The rest of the decommissioning activities can be safely started sooner and be performed more efficiently with the spent nuclear fuel on the ISFSI.

The used fuel is currently in the spent fuel pool and the existing Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI). This includes 2,430 fuel assemblies in the spent fuel pool and 2,074 fuel assemblies on the ISFSI pad. Holtec intends to move the remaining spent fuel from the pool into dry cask storage on the ISFSI pad, where it will be safely maintained and managed by Holtec until such time as the fuel is removed from site.

The fuel assemblies in the spent fuel pool will be moved into dry cask storage on the ISFSI pad beginning in January 2021 and will be completed by November 2021.

The federal government has the obligation to take receipt of used fuel located at nuclear stations across the industry. At this time, there is no clear timeline for that action. Holtec has submitted its license application to build a consolidated interim used fuel management facility in New Mexico. Oyster Creek’s used fuel could be relocated to this facility.

Holtec continues to explore all options for the safe and efficient removal of materials from the site including trucking and barging of waste. Once shipping decisions are finalized this will be shared with the local community. All shipping decisions will put safety first and would be done to minimize impact on the local community and environment.

The emergency planning zone was reduced to the site boundary. This allowance is determined based on careful review and consideration of scientific data related to the risks associated with a potential issue with the spent fuel pool. With the reactor no longer in operation, and the multiple defense in depth options to maintain adequate level in the spent fuel pool, the scientific basis for the reduction is warranted. The change was consistent with other decommissioning plants and was approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The conditions that could prompt a radiological emergency at Oyster Creek are negligible now that it is not operating. Still, state, county, and local emergency organizations, in cooperation with Holtec International, have developed a Post-Shutdown Emergency Response Plan that would be enacted in a highly unlikely radiological event. This plan is still reviewed and drilled regularly by emergency response organizations and the Company, to ensure its efficacy and applicability. These plans are available through the state and Ocean County for the public to view.

As recently as 2012, Superstorm Sandy caused flooding in the Pine Barrens. Yet, flooding only reached 6 ft. above sea level. Oyster Creek’s spent fuel is very safely stored at 24 ft. above sea level.

Much of Oyster Creek’s Security plan, including the number of employed Security officers and staff is safeguarded information. However, we can say that Oyster Creek is and will always be protected by a full staff of highly trained, armed security officers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Every nuclear power station’s Security plan is commensurate with its operational status, the number of employees and others on site, and the site’s actual footprint. The security plan can be altered as those factors change. Holtec has optimized its security plan for Oyster Creek to align with the station’s evolution from an operating facility to a decommissioning one. All security plans are reviewed and approved by the NRC before they are enacted.

NRC regulations for fire brigades also align with the station’s operational status, number of employees and facility combustible loading. As such, Holtec altered the fire brigade program for Oyster Creek. This plan was also approved by the NRC as well as our nuclear insurers, who oversee such matters.

These revisions are commensurate with the station’s operational status, risk level and overall footprint and do not compromise the health or safety of the public or our employees.

Oyster Creek will always have fire brigade members on site, ready to respond in the event of a fire. One responsible person at the station will always immediately assess a potential fire situation and extinguish the fire if possible. Should the incident require additional resources, a call for outside response would be made. In accordance with state, county, and local coordination plans the proper resources would be dispatched to address the incident. Station Security, Radiation Protection and a second incipient brigade member – a station employee — would be responsible for gearing up and escorting the outside fire company to the exact location of the fire. An incipient fire brigade is authorized by our regulators and our insurers.

Based off its Decommissioning Cost Estimate (DCE), Holtec is confident that sufficient funding is available to safely complete Oyster Creek’s decommissioning. Management and use of the Nuclear Decommissioning Trust Fund (DTF) is regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Though the DTF is expected to continue to grow, NRC regulations only allow licensees to assume a conservative minimum two percent real rate of return which takes inflation and other cost increases into consideration. In addition, licensees are required to submit an annual report to the NRC on decommissioning costs. If the NRC believed the DTF was insufficient, they can impose restrictions if the balance were to be off significantly — the NRC could ask to stop work or require additional funding into the DTF before decommissioning work can proceed.

As the current owner of Oyster Creek, Holtec has assumed all responsibility for the site, including the agreement with the State of New Jersey associated with the Administrative Consent Order of 2018.

Yes, the state continues to have jurisdiction for activities on site and regularly monitors our performance as well as radiation levels at and around the station. They will do so until all of the fuel is removed from the property. State radiological experts have access to the station and perform inspections at any time they deem necessary. Holtec and New Jersey DEP representatives share a strong, transparent working relationship.

Keeping neighbors and stakeholders informed has always been a priority at Oyster Creek. That has not changed. Holtec has already hosted and will continue to hosts future Stakeholder Information Forums, to provide a regular stream of information regarding its plans for decommissioning.

Nothing prevents the local community from creating its own nuclear decommissioning advisory panel. Based off Oyster Creek’s interactions with stakeholders, Holtec will continue the long-standing practice of hosting Stakeholder Information Forums. In addition, the State of New Jersey has created the Oyster Creek Safety Advisory Panel to help monitor the decommissioning of the plant.

Holtec has no plans to dredge Barnegat Bay at this time.

In early 2020, Holtec’s decommissioning team reached an agreement with construction and maintenance services company Williams Industrial Services Group to support the decommissioning of Oyster Creek as well as Pilgrim and other Holtec owned plants. Williams supplies supervision and craft labor for civil, electrical, and mechanical activities, demolition, and site remediation by working with local and regional unions to contract qualified workers for specific jobs.

Before working on site, these workers must successfully complete rigorous access training, satisfy all Fitness for Duty requirements, which includes drug and alcohol screening, and undergo a criminal background check. In order to remain working at the station, they must adhere to all of the rules and regulations set forth by Holtec and the NRC or face disciplinary actions up to immediate termination.

Holtec has no immediate plans for the site at this time. As decommissioning proceeds further along, Holtec looks forward to partnering with the local community about possible future uses.

To learn more about Oyster Creek decommissioning, visit www.oystercreekdecom.com.