NRC OKs Plans to Dismantle Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved plans to dismantle the $5.5-billion Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long Island, N.Y., the most expensive nuclear plant never to commercially generate electricity.

The decommissioning order, issued late Thursday, was made public Friday. It came a day after the NRC dismissed all appeals in the case of the New York power plant, which has never operated above a 5% testing level.

The order opens the way for Shoreham to become the first commercial U.S. nuclear power plant ever to be dismantled and converted to another use.

Richard Kessel, chairman of the Long Island Power Authority, which owns Shoreham, expressed cautious delight Friday.

“I think this is certainly, if not the moment, a major moment in Shoreham’s history,” Kessel said in New York. “But it’s not over ‘til it’s over. Until we make that first formal cut into the reactor vessel internals, anything can happen.”

The order allows the power authority to begin the $186-million task of removing radioactive waste and disassembling the plant, located 50 miles east of New York City. It has six years to eliminate all radioactive waste at the site.

Kessel said he expected that all of the low-level waste could be removed and shipped to a Barnwell, N. C., repository by the end of the year. The authority will try to sell the fuel to another nuclear plant or find some other use for it, he said.

Long Island Power Authority is considering converting Shoreham to a natural gas plant. Bids for the job are due July 15, and a decision will probably be made by the end of the year, Kessel said.

“Either way, some structures will remain,” he said. “Our decommissioning plan does not contemplate removing buildings.”