Our credo, A Generation Ahead By Design, is flourishing in our ongoing decommissioning programs at Oyster Creek and Pilgrim fueled by creativity and innovation to efficiently transition these sites to enable them to host diverse commercial economic activities at the earliest possible date.
We are pleased to announce that the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) has issued a draft environmental impact statement for Holtec International’s proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) called HI-STORE CISF in southeastern New Mexico (link to the document is here).The draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) includes the NRC staff’s preliminary recommendation that there are no environmental impacts that would preclude the NRC from issuing a license for environmental reasons. The NRC staff recommendation of “issuance of an NRC license to Holtec to construct and operate a CISF for SNF” is based on its review of Holtec’s license application, consultation with Federal, State, Tribal, and local agencies, input from other stakeholders, independent consultation with BLM staff, and its environmental review.
We are pleased to report that both of our decommissioning sites, Oyster Creek in Lacey Township, NJ and Pilgrim in Plymouth, Massachusetts, are setting new levels of excellence in every relevant metric of performance as they drive forward with safe and efficient deconstruction of the shuttered nuclear plants.
This publication is for key stakeholders, like you, interested in learning more about HI-STORE, Holtec International’s proposed Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) in Southeastern New Mexico.
Since 1986, it has been Holtec’s continued mission to develop technologies and services, while providing the utmost protection to workers and the communities in which it operates. Holtec continues to deliver this mission through its promise to decommission shutdown nuclear power plants safely and efficiently.
Going back to 1992, it is a tradition at Holtec to elect one “Holtec Fellow” at the end of each year. The honorees are announced at the Company’s New Jersey operation center annual holiday party.
We bid a fond goodbye to 2019 which will stand out in our company’s annals as a watershed year when we began the implementation of several new ambitious initiatives that will shape our endeavors for decades to come. The first new exciting undertaking is decommissioning of nuclear plants where we now own two reactor units and are on the verge of acquiring four more in the north of the United States. Much of our technology development work in 2019 focused on making decommissioning more palatable to the host communities by the development of ultra-high capacity waste packages to minimize the number of off-site shipments, of the strategies to enable the fuel pool to speedily enter the “cladding fire-free” status and of measures to shrink the facility’s security perimeter. Devising state-of-the-art simulation technologies to improve the shuttered plants’ protection against accidents and threats, and development of palliative technologies to deal with any anomalous used fuel storage system performance were also important components of our development effort in 2019. Our decommissioning organization has worked hard through the year to finalize the Holtec Decommissioning Fleet Management model that is aimed to set our Decommissioning and Dismantlement Program apart as a paragon of excellence reminiscent of our creed, “A generation ahead by design.”
Holtec International takes great pride in building and maintaining relationships with its key external stakeholders. As part of our efforts to keep you informed, we welcome you to our first issue of Holtec Happenings!
In a signing ceremony in London on December 17, 2019, EDF Energy’s Managing Director of Generation Mr. Matt Sykes hosted the signing of a Long-Term Agreement with Holtec International for the supply of casks and loading campaign services for Sizewell B. With the casks to be supplied under this Agreement, Sizewell B can continue to generate electricity until at least 2035 and EDF Energy can responsibly manage the long-term strategy for spent fuel discharged from Sizewell B.
Project Cheetah, quietly rolled out in 2004, has produced some transformative technologies such as underground canister storage, double wall canister and forced gas dehydration that have made dry storage implementation increasingly more efficient with the storage systems evolving into vanishingly small dose emitters and impregnable fortresses of security. Cheetah-spawned technologies have notched several notable triumphs, such as making it possible to store Chernobyl’s water-logged fuel to Western standards of safety and executing dry storage at the old Humboldt Bay Power Plant (PG&E), which had neither a competent building structure nor a capable cask crane. The invention of METAMIC-HT, which possesses an excellent combination of neutron absorption, thermal and mechanical properties, is another proud achievement of Cheetah. Metamic-HT, a nano-technology product invented by Holtec, is used in the vast majority of Holtec’s casks and canisters.
