A coalition of environmental groups in a letter last week urged the governor of Michigan to walk back her plans to secure a federal bailout for a recently-closed nuclear power plant in the Great Lakes State.
“We urge you in the strongest terms to cease and desist from your efforts to bail out the Palisades [Nuclear Generating Station] atomic reactor, in an attempt to return it to ever more high-risk operations till [sic] 2031,” Beyond Nuclear and a group of over 90 environmental organizations told Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) in a letter dated June 8.
The Covert, Mich., Palisades plant went offline May 20, about 11 days earlier than its scheduled shutdown date of May 31.
Among other things, the anti-nukers raised concerns in their letter about the plant’s safety record and suggested that Palisades’ reactor pressure vessel, steam generators and reactor lid are in need of repair to prevent a possible meltdown.
“To restart the permanently shut down for good Palisades reactor, and at federal taxpayer expense, would fly in the face of the ‘sacred trust’ of protecting the Great Lakes against radioactive risks,” the letter said.
The enviros’ letter arrived after Whitmer said in April that she would try to get Palisades operator Entergy to apply for a federal bailout under the Department of Energy’s roughly $6 billion civil nuclear credits program. The utility has said that it was contacted by Lansing about bidding on such a credit but that no formal proposal had been made and that it would be difficult to change course on Palisades’ shutdown, about five years in the making.
Meanwhile, nuclear services company Holtec International is set to take the reins at Palisades now that the plant is shut down. The company has said it would finalize its purchase of the plant from Entergy in June, after which it will start decommissioning the plant.
