Salt Lake City, August 23, 2010 — EnergySolutions, Inc. agreed to close its transaction with Exelon Nuclear to officially transfer the Zion Station licenses to EnergySolutions for the purpose of beginning the accelerated decommissioning of the Zion Station.
The anticipated date for officially transferring the licenses is September 1, 2010. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission conditionally approved the license transfer in 2008, a milestone in the EnergySolutions license stewardship program.
Zion Nuclear Power Station was a dual-reactor nuclear power plant in the Commonwealth Edison network that serves Chicago and the northern part of Illinois.
The plant was originally built in 1973 and was retired from service in 1998. The plant’s two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors had a capacity of 1,040 MW each.
"It is very important for EnergySolutions and Exelon to have agreed to close this transaction, so that decommissioning operations at the Zion Station can begin," said Val Christensen, President and CEO of EnergySolutions. "We appreciate the confidence Exelon has in EnergySolutions to safely and effectively perform the work."
The license stewardship program is a first-of-its-kind approach to accelerate the decommissioning of nuclear power plants. Under this program EnergySolutions will acquire the Zion Station assets and conduct its work as the owner and NRC licensee. EnergySolutions will process and dispose of all Zion low-level radioactive waste at its Clive, Utah facility and will place the spent nuclear fuel in NRC-approved dry cask storage containers on site.
The goal of the program is to safely accelerate the cleanup at least 12 years ahead of schedule, enabling the land to be restored for beneficial reuse sooner than originally planned. There will also be considerable economic benefit to the local community in terms of jobs, goods and services.
EnergySolutions offers customers a full range of integrated services and solutions, including nuclear operations, characterization, decommissioning, decontamination, site closure, transportation, nuclear materials management, processing, recycling, disposition of nuclear waste, and research and engineering services across the nuclear fuel cycle.
