SUMMERLIN, NEV. — Federal regulators should approve the sale of a Michigan nuclear power plant early next year, a Holtec executive said this week at the Exchange Monitor’s annual Decommissioning Strategy Forum.
Holtec International expects the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve its acquisition of the Palisades Power Plant from Entergy “no later than January of 2022,” Andrea Sterdis, Holtec’s vice president of regulatory and environmental affairs, said Monday during a panel discussion.
“That gives us six months to move ahead and plan further for a detailed transaction in June of next year,” Sterdis said.
Holtec and Entergy submitted their license transfer application back in December. The companies first agreed to the sale of the Covert, Mich. nuclear plant in 2018.
The sale has attracted some opposition from both state stakeholders and anti-nuclear groups. Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel, alongside the Environmental Law and Policy Group and Beyond Nuclear, petitioned NRC in February and asked them to walk back the transaction.
There were about $550 million in the Palisades decommissioning trust fund as of early this year, which Holtec planned to use for decommissioning, site management and spent fuel management.
If the sale is approved, Holtec has said that it will start decommissioning Palisades in 2025. The company expects to wrap the job up by 2041.
