Environmental Coalition Intervenes Against Palisades Atomic Reactor Restart: Groups Warn of Safety Risks of Unprecedented, Expensive "Nuclear Zombie" Scheme
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NEWS FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR Michael Keegan, co-chair, board of directors, Don’t Waste Michigan, Monroe, MI, (734) 770-1441, mkeeganj@comcast.net Eric Epstein, chair, Three Mile Island Alert, Harrisburg, PA, (717) 635-8616, epstein@efmr.org David Kraft, Director, Nuclear Energy Information Service, (773) 342-7650, neis@neis.org
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Environmental Coalition Intervenes Against Palisades Atomic Reactor Restart
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Groups Warn of Safety Risks of Unprecedented, Expensive "Nuclear Zombie" Scheme
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COVERT TOWNSHIP, MI and WASHINGTON, D.C., OCTOBER 8, 2024--A safe energy watch-dog coalition* filed a petition to intervene with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and requested a hearing, in opposition to Holtec International's unneeded Palisades nuclear power plant restart scheme on Lake Michigan's southeastern shore in Van Buren County. The petition, backed by expert witness Arnold Gundersen, chief engineer of Fairewinds Associates, Inc., warns of the extreme risks to safety, security, health, and the environment resulting from the more than 50-year old atomic reactor's severe age-related degradation, as well as its owner, Holtec's, utter inexperience operating a nuclear plant. (See a summary of Gundersen's declaration, below.) In terms of global warming mitigation, the coalition's petition also cites the significant opportunity costs of investing many billions of dollars of public subsidies into restarting Palisades, based on expert witness Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University's expert declaration on the reliable, cost-effective, and quick deployment potential of such clean energy sources as renewables like wind and solar power, storage, and efficiency. "Palisades is the flagship for this latest attempted nuclear relapse, and it is circling the drain. Constellation at TMI Unit 1 would be wise to cut its losses now and not follow Palisades into the abyss. The flagship Palisades has hit an iceberg. Three Mile Island Alert stands in opposition to the Palisades and TMI-1 closed reactor restarts, which is why we have joined this intervention," said Eric Epstein, chair of TMIA in Harrisburg, PA. The organization was founded in 1977, two years before the infamous 50% meltdown at TMI-2 on March 28, 1979, the worst commercial atomic reactor disaster in U.S. history. "All the king's horses, and all the king's men, will court disaster if they try to run Palisades again," said Alice Hirt of Holland, MI, intervenor on behalf of Don't Waste Michigan, a statewide, grassroots nuclear watch-dog group for the past four decades. "Lake Michigan is the drinking water supply for 16 million people in four states, including the City of Chicago," said David Kraft, director of Nuclear Energy Information Service, watch-dog on Illinois' nuclear industry for more than four decades. "Whether routinely discharging radioactive, toxic chemical, or thermally hot wastewater into the Lake, as well as the risk of a Fukushima or Chornobyl-scale catastrophe, Palisades' restart threatens the future of the Great Lakes, 21% of the entire planet's surface freshwater," Kraft added. SUMMARY OF DECLARATION BY NUCLEAR ENGINEER ARNOLD GUNDERSEN Entergy, Palisades’ prior owner, gave up the nuclear power plant’s operating license because using the dilapidated and ramshackle reactor was unprofitable. Entergy knew the reactor was unprofitable for at least half a decade before plant closure, so the corporation neglected critical repairs and long-term maintenance investments, anticipating closure in 2022. Instead of safeguarding Palisades’ valuable components as the facility neared its 2022 closure date, Entergy allowed the plant to deteriorate further. It sold Palisades to Holtec as scrap with useless components meant to be dismantled and destroyed. Holtec Decommissioning International (HDI) is an industrial demolition contractor with no nuclear power plant design, engineering, construction, or operations experience. Holtec Palisades acknowledges that Palisades' reactor’s physical condition is severely degraded. Using billions of dollars in Federal and State subsidies and none of its own cash assets, Holtec is attempting to grab funding to resurrect the 53-year-old derelict Palisades atomic reactor. A resurrection like the one planned for the Holtec Palisades facility is a preeminent construction project and a feat that has never been attempted anywhere else. The Holtec Palisades site, reactor, and crucial electric generating components are unsafe and incapable of reuse due to their poor condition and permanent flaws. More importantly, most experienced staff left when the plant closed, and the entire Quality Assurance (QA) program was destroyed, meaning that every component, wire, electric bulb, etc., must be reevaluated and tested. Holtec Palisades claims it will replace all Palisades’ staff and operate the defective and decimated reactor facility for 25 years.
Furthermore, the degraded condition of every aspect of this nuclear power plant, the lack of a long-term experienced, skilled staff, and the non-existent QA and management oversight programs that should be hallmarks of our country’s nuclear safety and licensing process and programs are sadly lacking at Holtec Palisades.
Additionally, should this decrepit and defective scrapped reactor somehow achieve licensure, its electricity will be too expensive to compete against renewable power sources. Thus, Holtec will demand additional subsidies from additional federal agencies and the State of Michigan to keep its aged and scrapped Palisades operating unsafely again. Holtec and the NRC's licensing approach violates [Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 50.59]. Palisades should not be allowed to restart unless it complies with all the regulations of 10 CFR 50.59, has completed all costly plant modifications, and meets all 21st-century licensing criteria. The reincarnation of the Palisades atomic power plant by Holtec Decommissioning International as Holtec Palisades violates 10 CFR 50.59. This is not an issue for legal scholars or the NRC but is part of the problem in the NRC’s overwhelming desire to operate nuclear plants no matter what the safety and financial costs are to the people of the United States (U.S.). In particular, it is essential to understand that NRC Commissioner Crowell has recognized that Entergy terminated the old Palisades operating license and that the permit cannot be reissued to Holtec without Palisades meeting the new, more stringent safety criteria of the 21st Century. He said, that Holtec Palisades needs to "start from scratch." Furthermore, NRC Commissioner Crowell added, “Certainly, the entire operation of the plant needs to be reassessed,” Crowell said. “It’s not the same as a refueling outage, and it’s not the same as a license renewal...I feel like it’s difficult to get our ducks in a row for that because it changes almost on a monthly basis...I understand they [Holtec] are in a posture of wanting to find a buyer to do it...but I think at this stage of the game, you’re gonna have to start from scratch." (Exchange Monitor, 2/7/2023) *The coalition includes: Beyond Nuclear; Don't Waste Michigan; Michigan Safe Energy Future; Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago; and Three Mile Island Alert of Harrisburg, PA. Terry J. Lodge of Toledo, OH, and Wallace L. Taylor of Cedar Rapids, IA, serve as the coalition's legal counsel. |
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