Palisades: $2.79 billion in bailouts, and counting
[Yard sign design by Michigan Safe Energy Future-Kalamazoo Chapter, and Shut Down Palisades Campaign. Photo by Kevin Kamps.]
On September 9, 2024, Kelly House at Bridge Michigan has published an article entitled “Palisades nuclear relaunch gets more subsidies in Michigan — and more backlash.” She reported on a close to billion-dollar bailout to support the Palisades zombie reactor restart, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). It is to reimburse rural electric co-ops in Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois for their purchase of exorbitantly priced electricity sales. The award announcement was made on September 5, 2024.
Wolverine of Michigan, and Hoosier of Indiana and Illinois, applied last October for $970 million from the USDA.
House’s article reports: “Spokespeople with the USDA Rural Development office refused to provide dollar amounts for the grants, but a Wolverine spokesperson said the company will receive more than $600 million.”
Presumably Hoosier would get the rest, another $370 million — although precise or even ballpark dollar figures have not been publicly reported, even in the press statements from the Biden White House, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office, and the USDA, all touting the bailout.
The “804 megawatts of nuclear” mentioned in the USDA press statement refers to the restarted Palisades reactor.
A USDA backgrounder reports that Hoosier, in Indiana and Illinois, would receive 369 of those megawatts. The remaining 435 megawatts would go to Wolverine in Michigan.
The USDA grants are most ironic. Palisades was a very high-risk reactor before it permanently shut down, under Entergy, on May 20, 2022. Holtec’s zombie reactor restart would increase the safety risks significantly, especially considering that lack of needed active maintenance on critical systems, structures and components for nearly 2.5 years, and counting. A reactor core meltdown could turn the surrounding region into a radioactive wasteland, like at Fukushima, Japan and Chornobyl, Ukraine.
Palisades’ host county, Van Buren, is one of Michigan’s most agriculturally productive, as are neighboring counties, Berrien and Allegan, and those downwind, such as Kalamazoo. Maynard Kaufman, who watch-dogged Palisades since before ground was broken in 1967, pointed this out numerous times over the decades, including at local U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission public comment sessions. Kaufman lived and farmed in Bangor, Michigan, within the ten-mile Palisades Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ). Kaufman, the founding father of the Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance, continued to oppose Palisades the rest of his life, till he passed on in 2021. This included signing on, as a Beyond Nuclear member and supporter, as a legal standing declarant, as part of our environmental coalition effort to block Holtec’s takeover of Palisades in the first place. Our intervention was filed on February 24, 2021.
Towards the end of the article, House reported:
But pushback from anti-nuclear activists is intensifying. They have filed several petitions in recent weeks raising concerns about the restart plan with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Nobody has ever attempted to reopen a shuttered nuclear plant, and opponents argue it’s unwise to do so.
They point to a history of safety violations, the danger of storing nuclear waste along the Lake Michigan shoreline, and concerns about aging infrastructure in the 53-year-old plant.
A decade ago, Palisades made a federal list of plants with the most “high level” safety violations nationwide, though government officials today routinely praise the plant’s more recent safety record.
“This plant was dangerous for decades before it shut down,” said Kevin Kamps, a radioactive-waste specialist with the nonprofit Beyond Nuclear. “It’s even become more dangerous since, because of that lack of active safety maintenance.”
Thus far, Holtec/Palisades has received the following bailouts for the unneeded, unprecedented, insanely expensive for the public, and extremely high-risk zombie reactor restart:
$1.52 billion + $300 million + $970 million = $2.79 billion*
DOE loan + State of MI grant + USDA grant = grand total, thus far.
However, Holtec has made numerous additional requests. If all granted, it would add up to more than $8.3 billion of public bailouts for the zombie reactor restart. See Beyond Nuclear’s breakdown of these bailouts.
Interlochen Public Radio has also reported on this story.
So too has Indiana Public Media.
*Note the following analysis by Tim Judson of NIRS, below, which puts the giveaway by USDA at a higher figure, of $1.11 billion. This would add another $140 million to the bailouts listed above ($970 million + $140 million = $1.1 billion). The total of $2.79 billion, above, would correspondingly increase to $2.92 billion.
Also note that the Power Purchase Agreement would likely last much longer than ten years — Holtec has initiated application to NRC for an 80-year license at Palisades, from 2031 to 2051, meaning 26 more years of restored operations at the zombie reactor (2025 to 2051). This begs the question, will yet more massive federal bailouts, as from USDA, be sought in the decades ahead, by Holtec, Wolverine, and Hoosier, at Palisades?
Analysis by Tim Judson of NIRS:
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