ASLB rejects intervenors’ Palisades “zombie” nuke reactor restart petition & hearing request

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB) has struck again. Per usual, the three-administrative law judge panel (formerly known as hearing examiners) has rejected all contentions re: health, safety, security, and the environment raised by an environmental coalition, denying hearings on the merits. Such rulings reflect the ASLB’s very well earned kangaroo court reputation. Not only is the NRC staff captured by the industry it is supposed to regulate, but so too is NRC’s ASLB.

See the 71-page ASLB ruling, here.

The coalition — Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago, and Three Mile Island Alert of Pennsylvania — did get the NRC ASLB to acknowledge its legal standing, although the NRC staff sought to block most of the groups. Some of the members/supporters who provided legal standing to the groups opposed by the NRC staff for establishing legal standing happen to live within less than a mile of the Palisades atomic reactor, and thus are very much in harm’s way.

Attorneys Terry Lodge of Toledo, Ohio, and Wally Taylor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, serve as the coalition’s legal counsel. Coalition expert witnesses include Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer of Fairewinds, as well as Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University, a world renowned advocate for renewable energy as the most time- and cost-effective pathway to climate mitigation. This means nuclear power is an opportunity cost, significantly hampering desperately needed reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, as soon as possible.

The coalition has resisted Holtec International’s scheme to restart the nearly 60-year old “zombie” atomic reactor at Palisades nuclear power plant since the get-go, on April 20, 2022, when Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer first floated the trial balloon of indefinite, continued operations, a month to the day before previous owner Entergy permanently shut down the reactor. Palisades was designed in the mid-1960s, and ground was broken on its construction in 1967.

Such a restart of a closed for good atomic reactor is unprecedented. It is also unneeded, insanely expensive for the public, and extremely risky. Palisades has been an atomic lemon since it was fired up in 1971, and is now dangerously age-degraded, after 51 years of problem-plagued operations, and three years of neglect by Holtec of safety-significant systems, structures, and components, such as the now dangerously degraded steam generator tubes. Holtec neglected steam generator tube maintenance for two years (2022-2024), a “rookie error” according to the coalition’s expert witness, Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds. But this rookie error, Gundersen, points out, could result in a catastrophic reactor core meltdown, if and when NRC allows Holtec to restart Palisades with mere BAND-AID fixes on the breakdown phase steam generator tubes.

The coalition will appeal the ASLB’s absurd ruling to the commissioners of the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Once the NRC Commissioners rule against us too, we will have exhausted all administrative remedies. At that point, we will file an appeal to the federal courts.

Although the ASLB has rejected all previous coalition contentions, the three-judge panel did not terminate the licensing proceeding. This is because the coalition amended certain contentions, and introduced new ones, based on the recent publication, in late Jaunary 2025, by NRC staff of a draft Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact regarding the “zombie” reactor restart scheme.

However, on March 28, 2025 — the 46th annual commemoration of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 meltdown in Pennsylvania — both the NRC staff, as well as Holtec International, opposed all of the coalition’s new and amended environmental contentions, as well.

The coalition will continue to defend its amended and new environmental contentions at every opportunity, as well. Our deadline to do so is later this week.