We are pleased to inform our global clients and stakeholders that Holtec International has successfully completed its business plan to establish the infrastructure for super-accelerated decommissioning of retired nuclear power plants. Holtec stands ready to apply its innovative technologies to cut the “time delta” (the total time elapsed to release over 95% of the plant site (all except the temporary dry storage installation) for unrestricted use after the reactor’s final day at power) to six years or less. Such a proto-prompt decommissioning will shorten the time it has historically taken to dispose the corpus of a shuttered plant by a decade or more.
 
The foremost Holtec technology in the service of proto-prompt decommissioning is Metamic-equipped used fuel storage system which enables a plant’s fuel pool to be defueled in less than 2-1/2 years after shutdown. Solid mechanics-guided plant civil structure deconstruction, use of modern segmentation and dismembering techniques, robot-assisted work in high radiation areas and a cloud-based state-of-the-art project management system are among the innovations that the Company is poised to introduce to its decommissioning projects as they enter the execution phase.

“Our company hopes to fulfill the best aspirations of the host communities by systematically deconstructing the shuttered nuclear plants with utmost environmental protection and supreme worker safety in the shortest possible time,” says Joy Russell, Holtec’s Chief Communications Officer (CCO). Holtec’s ongoing efforts to establish the HI-STORE CISF as the consolidated interim storage facility in Southeast New Mexico, when successful, will provide the pathway to close the on-site fuel storage installation erasing the last vestige of the nuclear plant structure on the land.  “HI-STORE CISF is the second leg of our drive to make a closed nuclear plant vanish entirely from the landscape and to make used nuclear fuel a non-issue in deciding on building of new nuclear plants,” says Ms. Russell. 
 
By blocking the radiation from the fuel containing stainless steel canisters and by situating them in below-grade impact-hardened cavities, HI-STORE CISF provides an essentially impregnable barrier to any conceivable threat. The loaded canisters stored in subterranean cavities are ever-ready to be transported to a repository under the aegis of the NRC and DOE.  

Thanks to the ability to maintain fuel confinement in the face of enormous impact loads from a free fall of over 20 feet on to a reinforced concrete target and bereft of any gasketed joints that impute vulnerability, the Holtec canisters themselves have been called a veritable “bulwark of safety” whether stored at nuclear plant sites or in the protective cavities of the below-grade storage system. Installing used fuel in an unquestionably safe interim storage is an essential part of Holtec’s decommissioning program. 
 
The company is making a substantial workforce expansion in its decommissioning enterprise unit. Anyone with relevant experience and professional passion for advancing the state-of-the-art in decommissioning is welcome to write to our Human Resources Department; Attention: Melanie Hogan (m.hogan@holtec.com) or Megan Holton (m.holton@holtec.com) or call 856-797-0900.