The last multi-purpose canister containing irradiated fuel from the US Oyster Creek NPP has been placed in dry storage emptying its Reactor Building of all fissile material and setting it on track for becoming the most rapid decommissioning programme in the USA, Holtec International said on 21 May. “The defuelling of the plant, conducted with seamless safety and below project dose estimates by Holtec’s Nuclear Power Division (NPD), a mere 32 months after the Oyster Creek’s permanent shutdown, is a new world record,” Holtec noted. “This rapid de-fuelling of the nuclear plant’s fuel pool is in accord with Holtec’s primary goal to inoculate its decommissioning sites from threats of any kind, including malevolent human acts.” The Holtec team loaded a total of 33 high-capacity HI-STORM 100 FW systems, with each system having the loading capacity of 89 BWR spent fuel assemblies. The Holtec team loaded 33 casks in a mere 21 weeks.
The storage facility contains previously loaded Transnuclear-supplied horizontal modules as well as the new Holtec vertical modules. CDI, a Holtec subsidiary jointly owned with SNC Lavalin, is the General Decommissioning Contractor. “We are implementing a state-of-the-art Ageing Management programme to protect the old horizontal modules from ravages of salt air while we work in parallel with the the Department of Energy to move all of the plant’s legacy high level waste to the ultimate safety of consolidated storage at our HI-STORE CIS site in New Mexico that is currently under NRC review,” said Holtec’s senior vice preident of NPD Operations PK Chaudhary.
