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VERNON — Rising interest rates are having an indirect effect on the decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

NorthStar Group Services has a projected $3.5 million financial shortfall, according to James Porter, the director of public advocacy for the Vermont Department of Public Service.

Porter told members of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel’s virtual meeting Monday night that he wasn’t overly concerned about the negative number as part of the $536.2 million job.

NorthStar currently needs $214 million to complete the decommissioning job, Porter said, while there is $211.3 million left in the decommissioning trust fund.

“We’re a little bit short,” Porter said. Nonetheless, he said, “NorthStar appears to be on course to complete the project with available funding.”

He said the difference was likely “reflective of unrealized losses due to rising interest rates.”

While the current target date for completion is 2030, NorthStar is expected to complete the job several years ahead of that, according to NorthStar decommissioning manager Corey Daniels.

Porter pointed out that the nuclear plant’s decommissioning trust fund was invested in U.S. Treasury securities.

And, he said, even if NorthStar’s expenses are higher than its budget, there is a $55 million escrow account that NorthStar set up at the insistence of the Shumlin administration back in 2018, when state regulators approved the sale of Vermont Yankee by Entergy Nuclear to NorthStar, a demolition firm.

Porter said the Yankee site restoration fund was in better shape: while it is projected to cost $25 million, with $12.4 million already “earned” or spent by NorthStar, and it needs $12.6 million to complete the work, there is $51.7 million in that trust fund.

“NorthStar appears to be on course to complete the project with available funding,” Porter said.

Porter’s news elicited little or no reaction from the panel, which was meeting for the first time in four months with several panel members missing.

Earlier in the meeting, Daniels gave an update on the demolition and deconstruction going on at the Vernon site. Decommissioning officially began in early 2019. Entergy Nuclear had shut down Vermont Yankee in December 2014, citing the New England energy markets and the then-low cost of natural gas.

Daniels said that the reactor vessel — which is some of the most radioactive material in the demolition project — was being cut up, packaged and prepared for shipment via railcar to Waste Control Specialists in west Texas. Vermont belongs to a low-level radioactive waste consortium with Texas, and much of Vermont Yankee will end up at WCS’ landfill.

Daniels said he expects the physical demolition work to be completed at the Vernon site by 2026, but that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has to approve the work for a “site release,” which would likely take longer.

Daniels said that NorthStar would be building a small monorail system within the reactor building to move some of the components, so they could be packaged in shielded containers for rail shipment to Texas.

He said the cooling tower area, which was demolished a couple of years ago, has been “restored to grade” and was being prepared for a final survey.

He said NorthStar had shipped 467 rail cars full of Vermont Yankee material to the Texas facility.

Contact Susan Smallheer at ssmallheer@reformer.com.

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