Pennsylvania raises alarms on transfer of radioactive Three Mile Island reactor

Citing current financial concerns, as well as the COVID-19 emergency, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has asked the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to delay a decision over a license transfer of the radioactive Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Dauphin County.

GPU Nuclear (currently a subsidiary of FirstEnergy), the company that operated the plant during the meltdown, plans to transfer its license to Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions, one of a few companies that purchase shuttered nuclear facilities to take over the decommissioning of the sites, with the goal of dismantling and disposing of radioactive materials cheaper and faster.

Eric Epstein, chair of the anti-nuclear watchdog group TMI Alert, opposes the transfer and has petitioned the NRC for a hearing. Epstein argues that the transfer is an illegal taking of public funds.

“This is about raiding the decommissioning trust fund,” he said. “TMI-2 Solutions, an investment vehicle based in Delaware, wants to come in and clean the plant up, something that nobody’s been able to do in 41 years, and do it cheaper and faster than anybody else. It’s a monumental fraud. And at the base of this deception is the fact that there’s over $1 billion in public money sitting in the decommissioning fund. And that’s what this is about, them coming in, taking the money, and then getting whatever is left over.”

But Epstein said the COVID-19 emergency and subsequent economic downturn changes the financing.

https://whyy.org/articles/pennsylvania-raises-alarms-on-transfer-of-radioactive-three-mile-island-reactor/

https://www.scribd.com/document/456589945/TMI-Unit2-Lic-Transfer-PA-DEP-Secr-Letter-to-NRC-6April2020-002