Duke Energy plans to place its shuttered reactor at Florida's Crystal River power plant into SAFSTOR and will decommission it by 2074.The unit north of Tampa operated from 1977 to 2009, when a steam generator replacement resulted in concrete delamination that compromised its containment structure. Earlier this year, the utility decided to close the reactor rather than repair it, and on Monday Duke announced it had filed a decommissioning plan with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.Also known as "deferred dismantling," SAFTOR allows plant owners to monitor the reactor for a length of time while radioactive elements decay before the property is cleared and decontaminated. Decommissioning must be completed within 60 years.The Charlotte Observer reported Duke's Crystal River decommissioning trust fund holds $778 million, with another $70 million anticipated from the reactor's minority owners. Duke expects returns from those funds over the interceding decades will provide the remainder of the estimated $1.18 billion the decommissioning project will cost.
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