NRC report updates decommissioning cost guidance

NUREG-1307, Revision 10, Report on Waste Burial Charges: Changes in Decommissioning Waste Disposal Costs at Low-Level Waste Burial Facilities, issued on February 18, explains the formula acceptable to the NRC for determining the minimum decommissioning fund requirements for nuclear power reactor licensees. The formula is based on the estimated cost of decommissioning a reference pressurized water reactor and a reference boiling water reactor in 1986 and is escalated to current year dollars using an adjustment factor.

NUREG-1307 contains burial cost escalation factors updated to the year 2024 for the reference PWR and BWR. The primary purpose of the report is to provide the technical basis, including references, for the estimated cost of reactor decommissioning and to develop the escalation factor for the LLW burial cost portion of the adjustment factor. Escalation factors for such things as labor and energy costs are also provided in the report.

The updates: NUREG-1307 is revised periodically to reflect changes in waste burial/disposition costs and to account for changes in labor and energy values. The most recent previous revision to NUREG-1307 was issued in February 2023.

According to the NRC, based on revised LLW burial factors contained in Revision 20, the minimum decommissioning fund formula amounts calculated by licensees “will likely reflect minimum decommissioning fund requirements that are lower, on average, when compared to those previously reported by licensees in 2023.”

The NRC said the lower average is the result of moderately lower LLW burial charges at the two disposal facilities in Texas and Utah, to which a majority of licensees are anticipated to dispose of some of their waste, and slightly to moderately higher charges at the remaining two facilities in South Carolina and Washington, to which a small number of licensees are anticipated to dispose of their waste.