The state of Michigan is still holding out hope that it can secure a federal bailout to breathe some life back into Palisades Nuclear Generating Station despite its closure last month, a spokesperson said this week.
“We are working with potential buyers, operators, and stakeholders to keep this vital energy source and the 600 good-paying jobs right here in Michigan,” a spokesperson for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) told RadWaste Monitor via email Friday. “The parties involved with Palisades have until July 5 to submit their application to the Department of Energy.”
Whitmer has said that she would try to get former Palisades operator Entergy to apply for a chunk of DOE’s roughly $6 billion civil nuclear credits program. The Covert, Mich., plant went offline May 20, about 11 days earlier than its scheduled shutdown date of May 31.
Entergy 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, a coalition of environmental groups in a letter last week urged Whitmer to stop trying to turn the lights back on at Palisades.
“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 the Michigan governor in a letter dated June 8.
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.
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.
