Intervention against Zombie Reactor Restart
| [Yard sign design by Michigan Safe Energy Future-Kalamazoo Chapter and Shut Down Palisades Campaign; photo by Kevin Kamps]
{Our environmental coalition — Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future — which has intervened together against Palisades multiple times in the past dozen years, now welcomes Three Mile Island Alert of Harrisburg, PA, and Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago, IL. TMIA and NEIS have joined our current intervention against the Palisades zombie reactor restart scheme. Thank you to Eric Epstein and Dave Kraft, the chair of TMIA, and director of NEIS, respectively!} {February 1, 2025 UPDATE: Beyond Nuclear, et al.‘s legal counsel, Wally Taylor of Cedar Rapids, IA, and Terry Lodge of Toledo, OH, submitted a notice and expert witness testimony by Dr. Mark Jacobson, professor at Stanford U. and internationally renowned greenhouse gas emission reduction strategist, to the NRC ASLB: Notice; Jacobson congressional testimony, dated Jan. 17, 2024, Seven Reasons Why New Nuclear Energy is an Opportunity Cost That Damages Efforts to Address Climate Change and Air Pollution; and Jacobson book chapter, Dec. 22, 2019, Evaluation of Nuclear Power as a Proposed Solution to Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Energy Security.} {November 21, 2024 UPDATES: On Nov. 4, 2024, NRC staff “Answered” the environmental coalition‘s October 7, 2024 intervention petition and hearing request. NRC staff also “Answered” Alan Blind and Palisades Park residents’ petition and request. Likewise, Holtec International “Answered” both Beyond Nuclear et al., as well as Blind et al., on November 4, 2024. The environmental coalition, and Blind et al., submitted their “Replies,” to NRC’s “Answers,” on November 12, 2024. Oral argument pre-hearings had been tentatively scheduled by NRC’s Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB), for a several hour time block, sometime during the week of December 16, 2024. This was later changed to Feb. 12, 2025, to be held at NRC HQ in Rockville, MD. More than once, the environmental coalition had requested an in-person session be held in the proximity of Palisades, instead, given the intense public interest and controversy of Holtec’s zombie reactor restart scheme. But the ASLB Panel did not respond to our coalition’s request. On Feb. 6, 2025, the ASLBP issued an ORDER: the session on Feb. 12 will now be remote/virtual only; the in-person component has been cancelled. Listen-only/call-in numbers have been provided, for members of the public and news media to hear the oral arguments.} NEWS FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR For immediate release Contact: Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist, Beyond Nuclear, Kalamazoo, MI, (240) 462-3216, [email protected] Michael Keegan, co-chair, board of directors, Don’t Waste Michigan, Monroe, MI, (734) 770-1441, [email protected] Eric Epstein, chair, Three Mile Island Alert, Harrisburg, PA, (717) 635-8616, [email protected] David Kraft, Director, Nuclear Energy Information Service, (773) 342-7650, [email protected]
(Media reporters wishing to speak with Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer of Fairewinds, can do so by contacting Kevin Kamps, above.)
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Environmental Coalition Intervenes AgainstPalisades Atomic Reactor Restart |
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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| Beyond Nuclear is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization. Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abolish both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. The Beyond Nuclear team works with diverse partners and allies to provide the public, government officials, and the media with the critical information necessary to move humanity toward a world beyond nuclear. Beyond Nuclear: 7304 Carroll Avenue, #182, Takoma Park, MD 20912. [email protected]. www.beyondnuclear.org. |
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