Saving money in a safe way: that has been the commitment and focus for Vermont Yankee shutdown and decommissioning ever since the plant ceased operations in 2014. The decommissioning trust fund is large (almost $600 million now) but finite. It must be used prudently to finish a lengthy, complicated job with very high safety and security standards.
So Entergy deserves credit for moving up its plan to save the trust fund $1.2 million per month by appropriately reducing the security footprint of the plant site 90 percent by the end of next year, from the current 10.5 acres to 1.3 acres of the dry-cask storage pads and its proposed security perimeter. By then, all of the spent fuel will be in dry casks.
Furthermore, removing most of the high-security protective measures (fences, guards, etc.) from the rest of the site will make the decommissioning job go much smoother, as 90 percent of Vermont Yankee becomes less of a “secure facility” and more of a decontamination and demolition site.
The less trust-fund money Entergy spends now, the more money NorthStar will have to finish the job by its planned date of 2026. NorthStar has committed to multiple financial protections against unexpected overage but still, it makes sense to save money in a safe way.