NRC approves sale of Three Mile Island Unit 2 for decommissioning

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved the transfer of the license for the Three Mile Island Generating Station, Unit 2 (TMI-2) to EnergySolutions and its subsidiary, TMI-2 Solutions, to complete the decommissioning of the unit.

The license was transferred from FirstEnergy Companies and its subsidiaries Metropolitan Edison, Jersey Central Power and Light, Pennsylvania Electric, and GPU Nuclear. EnergySolutions is a Utah-based radioactive waste disposal company. Also, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) approved the sale of Unit 2 to TMI-2 Solutions.

The reactor is located approximately 10 miles southeast of Harrisburg, Pa. It operated for approximately six months before suffering reactor core damage on March 28, 1979. The partial meltdown resulted in the permanent closure of the facility. In the 1980s, 99 percent of the nuclear fuel was removed from the plant, packaged, and relocated to a storage facility at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The facility has remained in a safe and stable storage condition known as Post Defueling Monitored Storage since 1993.

The review by the NRC confirms that EnergySolutions meets all regulatory, legal, financial, and technical requirements to acquire the NRC license and transfer the plant. In addition, the NRC found that the proposed transfer provides reasonable assurance that public health and safety will be protected and is not detrimental to the common defense and security. The license currently authorizes only possession of byproduct and special nuclear materials remaining at the reactor.

FirstEnergy Corp and EnergySolutions submitted the request for the license transfer on November 12, 2019. The approval is effective immediately.

“This is a major milestone in the nuclear industry and for the central Pennsylvania region,” Ken Robuck, president and CEO of EnergySolutions, said. “We appreciate the thorough review of this request by the NRC and the New Jersey BPU with the understanding of the responsibility granted to EnergySolutions by both organizations to safely decommission the Three Mile Island Unit 2 Nuclear Power Plant. We are excited for the opportunity to safely decommission Unit-2 at Three Mile Island and restore the area to its natural state. We currently have four decommissioning projects, two of which will be completed by the end of the year. These four projects have provided valuable experience with best practices and lessons learned that we will incorporate into this project.”

EnergySolutions and Jingoli, a construction company headquartered in New Jersey, formed a joint venture called ES/Jingoli Decommissioning to perform the decommissioning work on this project. Jingoli successfully managed and executed nuclear projects on behalf of numerous utilities in the United States and Canada. It has experience in the nuclear field from pre-construction, construction management, project controls, and decommissioning.