TMI Update: Jan 14, 2024


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Background

Type: 
TMI-2 SOLUTIONS, LLC, THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR STATION, UNIT 2 - NRC INSPECTION REPORT NO. 05000320/2023004
 
ADAMS ACCESSION NO. ML24031A275
 
 
Document Title:
Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station - Late LLRW Shipment Investigation Report Pursuant to 10 CFR 20, Appendix G
Document Type:
Letter
Document Date:
02/02/2024

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https://files.constantcontact.com/abc65024401/7ee258bf-32c2-48a3-bbd6-c0cec7c545aa.jpg?rdr=true

 
Beyond Nuclear Bulletin
February 1, 2024
 


HOLTEC'S LEGAL WOES
$5 Million Fine, Oral Arguments on CISF

New Jersey's Attorney General announceda $5 million fine, and three years of probationary supervision, for Holtec, after its latest series of lies to the NJ Economic Development Authority (NJEDA). As reported by NJ Spotlight News, Holtec sought twice the tax break for which it was eligible, and after the deadline, backdating documents. In 2019, the story broke that Holtec provided false answers on its application for $260 million in tax breaks. Also, its fired Chief Financial Officer continues his whistleblower lawsuit, alleging Holtec concealed $750 million in projected losses at its consolidated interim storage facility in New Mexico. Federal appeals against this CISF have been scheduled for oral argument on March 5 at the District of Columbia Circuit Court.

Read More

US NUKES IN BRITAIN?
CND sees imminent deployment

The longtime UK anti-nuclear group, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) has responded to compelling evidence that US nuclear weapons are about to return to UK soil. Files show construction plans for guard shacks at the US air base at Lakenheath in Suffolk, designed for ballistic protection. An earlier US Air Force report outlined plans for a dormitory to house the additional personnel needed to handle nuclear weapons at the base. The latest US capable jet fighter, the F-35A, is already at Lakenheath, designed to drop the B61-12 guided nuclear bomb. 110 US free-fall B61 nuclear bombs were removed from Lakenheath in 2008, following sustained protest. The return of US nuclear weapons to Britain makes the country a nuclear target, says CND.

Read More


ZOMBIE REACTOR?!
$1.5 Billion for Palisades Restart
 
Bloomberg broke the story that the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office is poised to award Holtec a loan guarantee for $1.5 billion, for the unprecedented, extremely high-risk restart of Michigan...
Happy Groundhogs Day!
 
Not surprisingly, Vogtle Unit 4 in GA is delayed...yet again. Several links below w/the Bloomberg/E&E/EnergyWire pasted below.
 
AJC's coverage was longer, more in depth.
 
AP picked up widely:
 
 
Thanks,
Sara Barczak, 912-201-0354
 

Vogtle nuclear project is delayed again

BY BLOOMBERG | 02/02/2024 06:52 AM EST

ENERGYWIRE | Southern expects its long-delayed Vogtle nuclear project in Georgia to be pushed back again.

The Unit 4 reactor is expected to go into service in the second quarter, according to a filing Thursday. In November, the company said it would be done in the first quarter.

Southern said the delay stems from vibration issues with pipes in the cooling system that have to be resolved. The delay isn’t expected to add to total costs for the project, but Southern said it could be a drag on profit. If the plant doesn’t go into service by March 31, it would negatively impact earnings by “approximately $30 million per month until the month following the date commercial operation for Unit 4 is achieved,” according to the filing.

The Vogtle project to add two reactors to the facility is nearing completion, but it’s years behind schedule and costs have more than doubled to over $30 billion. Unit 3 went into service in July.

The intensifying threat of climate change is boosting the value of nuclear energy, and there’s a realization that the expensive, long-delayed Vogtle project could play an important role in US efforts to curb emissions.

Biden admin poised to aid nuclear plant with massive loan

By Brian Dabbs
01/31/2024 01:29 PM EST

The owner of a shuttered nuclear plant in Michigan is signaling a massive loan could come soon from the Department of
Energy, a move that would mark the latest attempt by the Biden administration to bolster the struggling nuclear sector in the
U.S.

Holtec International — the owner of the Palisades nuclear plant southwest of Grand Rapids — is “hopeful” it will “hear a
favorable decision in the near future” on the DOE loan, a spokesperson for the company, Nick Culp, told E&E News on
Wednesday.

“We are very optimistic about the federal loan process and confident in the strength of our application,” Culp said. “The
unified effort to bring Palisades back online will return 800 megawatts of safe, reliable and carbon-free baseload generation
back to our electric grid — ensuring Michigan and the country meet climate goals while boosting around-the-clock reliability
for families and businesses.”

On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Holtec is poised to get a $1.5 billion loan to reopen the shuttered plant on the shores of
Lake Michigan from the DOE Loan Programs Office (LPO), an arm of the department with hundreds of billions of dollars in
authority. A spokesperson for the LPO declined to comment.

The potential loan comes in the wake of a for the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California.$1.1 billion DOE bailout
The bailout program, authorized in the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021, is designed to provide grants to unprofitable
nuclear plants. A recent round of bailout offerings . Many energy experts expected Holtec to apply for theyielded no takers
grants.

Speaking to E&E News last week, CEO Kris Singh said the Palisades plant is a boon to U.S. clean energy.

“Right now, clean energy is in short supply. Companies want to switch. The consumers want to switch,” he said in an
interview. “The state government, local community, the Department of Energy, and finally the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission],
which has the last word, in our meetings have not shown any reluctance to restart the plant, if we are able to show to them that all
the safety metrics are preserved.”

Nuclear critics say the plant is a threat to the local community.

"The problem with a DOE loan guarantee, at least for taxpayers, is that it is interest-free, and risk-free. Holtec need not pay it
back, leaving taxpayers holding the bag,” Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, said in an email.

“But the extreme risks to health, safety, security, and the environment of restarting this severely age-degraded zombie reactor
could prove much more costly to those living downwind, downstream, up the food chain, and down the generations."

The LPO has more than $400 billion in lending authority after a. Among its morebig injection in the Inflation Reduction Act
controversial loans, the office is lending $3 billion to Sunnova Energy for a . Nationwide virtual power plant project
month, DOE also extended a loan to LongPath Technologies for that company's efforts to monitor methane emissions at
production sites in the U.S. West

Republicans on Capitol Hill have repeatedly targeted the LPO. Last week, House Republicans LPO threatened to subpoena
Director Jigar Shah.

Nuclear energy, which does not directly produce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, currently provides about a tenth
of global electricity. The fuel provided on the grid in 2022.18 percent of U.S. electricity

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is currently to boost next-generation nuclear production. collaborating to advance legislation
On Tuesday, Holtec as part of a criminal investigation into state tax credits the agreed to pay New Jersey $5 million
sought in 2018.

Reporter Zachary Bright contributed.

Efforts are underway to block Perry nuclear plant's license extension

Tom Henry
The Blade
thenry@theblade.com
Jan 31, 2024
7:00 AM

A three-judge panel took testimony on Tuesday related to Energy Harbor’s request to get the operating license of its Perry nuclear plant east of Cleveland extended another 20 years.

The Perry nuclear plant and the Davis-Besse nuclear plant east of Toledo are Ohio’s two nuclear plants.

Both are owned and operated by Energy Harbor, both are along the Lake Erie shoreline, and both are in the process of being transferred to Texas-based Vistra Corp.

Davis-Besse went online April 22, 1977. Its operating license was extended to April 22, 2037 in 2015.

Perry went online Nov. 13, 1986. Its operating license is currently scheduled to expire on Nov. 7, 2026.

Energy Harbor is now trying to get Perry’s license extended another 20 years.

Judges hearing the case are part of an independent panel created by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

They weren’t hearing the actual challenge on Tuesday, but whether there is enough evidence to convene a more in-depth hearing in the future.

One of the contentions raised by opponents of the relicensing plan, Ohio Nuclear Free Network and Takoma Park, Md.-based Beyond Nuclear, centered around viable options that would be available if Perry’s license was not extended.

Four years after Davis-Besse’s license was renewed, the region’s 13-state grid operator, PJM Interconnection, said in a report to an Ohio legislative committee that it believed there would be enough electricity produced from other sources to make up for the shortage if the previous owner, FirstEnergy Solutions, had gone through with its plan to shutter those two plants and the twin-reactor Beaver Valley complex in western Pennsylvania in 2020. 

That was the original plan, announced and filed with the NRC, because of economic issues. Nuclear plants have had trouble competing against lower-priced sources of energy production, such as natural gas, solar, and wind energy.

Terry Lodge, a Toledo attorney representing the two opposition groups, told judges that the report is a key finding now that the Perry plant is up for its license extension. One of the questions raised during relicensing hearings is based on alternative options to continued nuclear power production.

Energy Harbor dismissed the viability of other sources as unreasonable, stating that nuclear power is too important to the baseload component.

Mr. Lodge, in his argument, accused Energy Harbor of “ducking under the regulation” by just stating in a report to the ASLB panel there are not enough viable alternatives without supporting that with evidence.

“We are not quibbling over a need for power. We’re quibbling over whether there is adequate disclosure,” Mr. Lodge told the judges. “There’s no analysis whatsoever.”

He said the 2019 PJM report claiming there are enough other sources of power in the 13-state region should be enough to merit a full hearing.

Ryan Lighty, a Washington-based partner in the Morgan Lewis law firm representing Energy Harbor, said Mr. Lodge is basing his claim on “an isolated comment at a state legislative hearing five years ago.”

“We certainly believe the baseload capability [of the Perry nuclear plant] is the area that introduces some uncertainty into the analysis,” Mr. Lighty said.

Reuben Siegman, an NRC staff attorney, said the regulatory agency was not taking a position on that debate.

PJM’s testimony came when Ohio lawmakers were considering passage of what has now become known as scandal-ridden House Bill 6, the $1 billion, 2019 bailout legislation for the two nuclear plants that federal prosecutors have shown was the result of a $61 million bribery scheme involving former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder.

Evelyn Robinson, PJM manager of state governmental affairs, testified before Ohio’s House Select Committee on Energy Policy and Oversight in September of 2020 when lawmakers were considering a repeal of House Bill 6.

 

 

 

PJM’s Evelyn Robinson Testifies Before Ohio Legislators | PJM Inside Lines
 

PJM issued a report in 2019 at the request of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel and the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. PJM. The grid operator claimed there could have been a $1.6 billion savings across the grid operator's 13-state region by 2023 if reactors at the Davis-Besse, Perry, Three Mile Island, and Beaver Valley nuclear complexes had continued on their paths toward early closures.

That's because PJM gets enough power from other sources that it is always at least 15 percent above capacity, and usually 20 percent or more. The surplus of electricity is meant to keep this part of the country from experiencing the type of rolling blackouts that California has experienced, Ms. Robinson said at the time.

JEFF PILLETS | JANUARY 30, 2024 | BUSINESS, MORE ISSUES
 
Holtec International avoids criminal prosecution related to false documents
 
Credit: (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
June 18, 2019: A Holtec International facility in Camden
 
Holtec International, the Camden firm behind controversial nuclear power projects in New Jersey and four other states, has agreed to pay a $5 million penalty to avoid criminal prosecution connected to a state tax break scheme.
 
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin announced Tuesday that  Holtec has been stripped of $1 million awarded by the state in 2018 under the Angel Investor Tax Break Program. Holtec will also submit to independent monitoring by the state for three years regarding any application for further state benefits, Platkin said.
 
The agreement, which also covers a real estate company owned by Holtec founder and CEO Krishna Singh, came after a lengthy criminal investigation that discovered Holtec had submitted false information to the state in seeking the Angel tax breaks.
 
Holtec’s use of misinformation for private gain, as detailed by the state attorney general, closely parallels allegations that have followed the company for years as it sought public subsidies to finance international ambitions in the nuclear field.
 
“Today, we are sending a clear message,” Platkin said. “No matter how big and powerful you are, if you lie to the state for financial gain, we will hold you accountable — period.”
 
Denies wrongdoing
 
Holtec, in a statement, denied any wrongdoing and called the non-prosecution agreement a “settlement” that would prevent years of costly litigation.
“This resolution allows Holtec and its over 500 employees in New Jersey to continue their important work on the forefront of the green-energy revolution in America and beyond,’’ according to the statement.
 
Patrick O’Brien, a company spokesman, declined to discuss details of the criminal investigation and did not comment when asked if the agreement with New Jersey was part of a pattern of ethical issues that continue to dog the company as it expands into decommissioning and the construction of advanced nuclear reactors.
 
Previously fined
In 2010, the Tennessee Valley Authority fined Holtec $2 million and ordered company executives to take ethics training after a bribery investigation involving Singh’s dealings with a key subcontractor.
 
The TVA also banned Holtec from federal work for 60 days, the first ever such debarment in the agency’s history.
 
In 2023, Holtec’s former chief financial officer filed a federal lawsuit claiming that he had been fired after refusing to sign off on false financial information the company was allegedly sending to potential investors. Kevin O’Rourke alleges that Holtec intentionally sought to inflate revenue projections and hide millions in expected losses.
 
‘This is a company that continues to face questions about its actions and transparency.’ — New Mexico state Sen. Jeff Steinborn
 
Those allegations, which Holtec has denied, include the company’s effort to mask $750 million in potential losses for its controversial proposal to build a consolidated nuclear waste storage facility in southeast New Mexico. That project, which was approved by federal regulators last year, faces a federal court challenge lodged by private groups and New Mexico state officials, who say Holtec lied about key information on its applications to build the storage facility.
 
 
The alleged false information, New Mexico officials say, included Holtec’s representation that it had obtained property rights from mine owners and oil drillers who are active near the 1,000-acre plot of desert land where Holtec would eventually place up to 10,000 spent nuclear fuel canisters with some 120,000 metric tons of radioactive waste.
 
New Mexico lawsuit
 
New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, who is suing in federal court to stop the Holtec plan, told NJ Spotlight News in an earlier interview that Holtec’s “false claims” could have profound potential impact on her state. There are more than 50 oil, gas and mineral wells within a 10-mile radius of Holtec’s site, she said, and the potential for underground contamination is real.
 
Credit: (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)
 
New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, who is suing in federal court to stop Holtec’s plan to build a consolidated nuclear waste storage facility in southeast New Mexico
 
“I understand we need to find a [nuclear waste] storage solution, but not in the middle of an active oil field, not from a company that is misrepresenting facts,” Garcia Richard said in an earlier statement.
 
New Mexico state Sen. Jeff Steinborn, whose law to ban the facility is now part of that federal lawsuit, told NJ Spotlight News that questions about Holtec’s character should be a deep concern for the public. Holtec, he pointed out, plans to transport dangerous spent fuel from retired power reactors across the nation to the site.
“This is a company that continues to face questions about its actions and transparency,” Steinborn said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “Do we really want to trust this company with the nation’s spent nuclear fuel?”
So-called dry casks manufactured by the company have long been used at nuclear reactor sites from New Jersey to California to store spent fuel that was initially segregated in water-filled fuel pools.
 
Decommissioning operations
 
Over the past half-decade, Holtec has moved aggressively forward from its manufacturing roots to take ownership of closed nuclear plants that are in the process of being retired. The company runs decommissioning operations at the retired Oyster Creek generating station along Barnegat Bay at Lacey Township, and three other sites, including New York’s Indian Point and the Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts.
 
The company has informally discussed starting up some of the new reactors at Oyster Creek and the Palisades site in Michigan, and is also pursuing plans to bring the next-gen nukes to Ukraine, Great Britain and other countries overseas.
 
Holtec now controls billions in public money that was set aside by utility users in each state for the safe decommissioning of nuclear reactors, a process that regulators have estimated could take 60 years for most reactors. Holtec, instead, has claimed it could dismantle the old plants and restore the land for public use in a fraction of that time.
 
Despite approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, public interest groups worry that Holtec, a private limited liability company, may drain the decommissioning trust funds and go bankrupt in its effort to complete expedited closure of some of America’s oldest nuclear plants.
 
Legal settlements elsewhere
 
Attorneys general in Massachusetts and New York were so worried that taxpayers could be left high and dry, they filed lawsuit pointing out multiple inconsistencies in Holtec’s plans. Both states have won legal settlements designed to stop Holtec from depleting the trust funds.
 
In addition to controlling the public trust funds, Holtec has also received or applied for billions in taxpayer subsidies and federal grants and loans. Some of those subsidies would help the firm finance its proposed storage dump in the New Mexico desert, as well as construction of a new generation of so-called SMRs, or small modular reactors.
 
"The company has informally discussed starting up some of the new reactors at Oyster Creek and the Palisades site in Michigan, and is also pursuing plans to bring the next-gen nukes to Ukraine, Great Britain and other countries overseas."
 
Credit: (AP Photo/Mel Evans, File) Holtec runs decommissioning operations at the retired Oyster Creek generating station along Barnegat Bay at Lacey Township, and three other sites, including New York’s Indian Point and the Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts.
 
No such small nuclear reactor has ever been brought online in the U.S., as they face significant costs and regulatory hurdles despite the support  of some policymakers who argue that nuclear power can help reduce atmospheric carbon. A plan to build SMRs in Idaho collapsed last year after its cost more than doubled, to $9 billion.
It is unclear how the fine and criminal investigation announced Tuesday by New Jersey might affect Holtec’s plans to develop a new fleet of reactors.
 
The NJ case
 
According to the attorney general’s office, Holtec’s false tax break application concerned its partnership with a battery manufacturing firm named Eos Energy Storage. Holtec had planned on using Eos to help develop SMR technology at a manufacturing plant in western Pennsylvania.
 
Holtec and Singh Real Estate, a subsidiary owned by the company’s owner, invested $12 million in Eos in exchange for six million shares in the company. Holtec, however, manipulated its tax break application to hide information about the investment and double its tax award from $500,000 to $1 million, according to the attorney general.
 
Credit: (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
Krishna Singh, center, the founder, president and CEO of Holtec International, pictured in July 2014
 
Investors in EOS have brought a class-action lawsuit against the battery manufacturer, citing unspecified financial fraud. Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed by the firm show Singh was briefly a member of the company’s board of directors before resigning.
 
“We have entered the battery industry to provide the means to store large quantities of electrical energy from nuclear, solar and other renewable energy generation facilities and deliver power to the user on demand.,” Singh said in a Sept. 2019 press release. “The availability of a suitably sized battery-powered energy storage plant will make our SMR-160 reactor even more valuable.”
 
O’Brien, the Holtec spokesman, said Singh made “a personal decision based on business interests” to cut ties with Eos and said plans to develop small reactors are on schedule. He said he knew no further details about Eos’s issues with investors.
 
‘Unfounded retaliatory criminal prosecution’
 
In his statement, O’Brien accused New Jersey of engaging in “unfounded retaliatory criminal prosecution” and payback for closing an earlier legal attempt to rescind  $260 million in state tax credits awarded to Holtec in 2014. The state sued to delete that tax award after discovering that Holtec had apparently concealed its 2010 debarment from the Tennessee Valley Authority.
 
 
State courts ruled in favor of Holtec after finding that the state regulators who administer the tax break program failed to perform adequate due diligence on applicants with spotty ethical backgrounds.
 
Public interest groups and nuclear safety experts who continue to oppose Holtec’s plans around the country, however, say the New Jersey fine is another warning sign. They said federal regulators, including the Department of Energy, must redouble scrutiny before awarding more public subsidies to the company.
 
“Clearly, Holtec lies habitually for fraudulent financial gain,” said Kevin Kamps, a radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a leading watchdog group that is suing to stop Holtec’s New Mexico plan, as well as efforts to collect billions in subsidies to restart the retired Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan.
 
“The State of Michigan, and U.S. Department of Energy, must… not hand over hundreds of millions of dollars in state, and multiple billions of dollars in federal, taxpayer money for Holtec’s unprecedented, extremely high-risk zombie reactor restart scheme at Palisades.”



Ari Natter
·2 min read
 

(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration is poised to lend $1.5 billion for what what would be the first restart of a shuttered US nuclear reactor, the latest sign of strengthening federal government support for the atomic industry.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The funding, which is set to get conditional backing from the US Energy Department, will be offered as soon as next month to closely held Holtec International Corp. to restart its Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, according to people familiar with the matter.

Holtec has said a restart of the reactor is contingent on a federal loan. Without such support, the company has said it would decommission the site.

The financing comes as the Biden administration prioritizes maintaining the nation’s fleet of nuclear plants to help meet its ambitious climate goals — including a plan to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2035. More than a dozen reactors have closed since 2013 amid competition from cheaper power from natural gas and renewables, and the Energy Department has warned that as many of half of the nation’s nuclear reactors are at risk of closing due to economic factors.

A spokeswoman for the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office declined to comment, citing business confidentiality.

Nick Culp, a Holtec spokesman, said the company was “very optimistic” about the Energy Department loan process.

“This is a historic opportunity for the country and Michigan,” Culp said. “As we transition away from fossil fuels, nuclear is going to be a critical part of not only reaching our climate goals but doing so in a way that ensures the lights stay on.”

Holtec acquired the 800-megawatt power plant in 2022 after Entergy Corp. closed it due to financial reasons, but began pushing forward with plans to restart after pleas from Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

The Juniper, Florida-based company’s plans for a restart got a boost after Wolverine Power Cooperative, a local power company, agreed to buy as much as two-thirds of the plant’s output starting as soon as late 2025, though additional hurdles, including sign off from federal nuclear regulators, remains.

The funding would be backed by a loan guarantee program designed to revitalize old energy plants that was created in President Joe Biden’s climate law. If successful, Palisades would be the first nuclear reactor financed by the Biden administration.

(Updates with background in third paragraph.)

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