A private company’s plans to purchase and decommission two Michigan nuclear power plants took a step forward Monday, when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission provisionally approved the transaction, according to a new agency order.
NRC staff approved the sale of Palisades Nuclear Generating Station and Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant to Holtec International from Entergy, the commission told Entergy Nuclear president Christopher Bakken in a letter dated Monday.
The order, which allows Holtec to take control of Covert, Mich., and Charlevoix, Mich., plants and their spent fuel storage pads, will go into effect once the sale is finalized. However, environmental groups and the state of Michigan have requested hearings on the application by the NRC, and the result of those proceedings, if they are held, could affect the terms of the license transfer.
Holtec could make things official with Entergy in the next six months or so. The company has said that it expected to get NRC’s approval by January, and that the sale could be finalized by June of next year.
Opponents of the Palisades and Big Rock Point sales were waiting in the wings for months to throw a spanner in the works. On Monday, one such group, Beyond Nuclear, said in a press release that the commission “rejected a petition to intervene and request for hearing” on the sale — however, Beyond Nuclear’s request for a hearing, and other requests for hearings, are still pending before the commission, an NRC spokesperson said.
Reached Tuesday by email, Kevin Kamps, chairman of Beyond Nuclear, would not deny that the hearing was still pending but told the RadWaste Monitor that it “seems very unlikely” NRC would now approve one.
“Post-approval, then they condescend to hold the hearing?” Kamps said. “Didn’t they just approve the license transfer? What good is a hearing post-approval?”
In a joint press release Monday with other environmental groups, Kramps said that “NRC’s blank check for Holtec to misappropriate Palisades Decommissioning Trust Funds is an outrage, looting the pocketbooks of hardworking Michiganders,” Kamps said in the group’s Monday statement.
“Staff approved a financial exemption allowing Holtec to use fund money for spent fuel management and site restoration only after evaluating the trust fund and verifying there is more than enough to cover those as well as radiological decommissioning,” an NRC spokesperson wrote in an email Tuesday. “Similar exemptions have been approved for other decommissioning plants.”
In its hearing request, Beyond Nuclear raised concerns about Holtec’s ability to fund proper decommissioning of the Palisades plant and spent fuel management at the already-dismantled Big Rock Point. As of earlier this year, Palisades’s decommissioning trust fund had a balance of around $550 million — cash that Holtec plans to use for taking the plant apart and managing its spent fuel inventory.
“The NRC’s approval is a major milestone that reaffirms Holtec’s standing as the industry leader in the decommissioning of retired nuclear plants,” said Holtec senior vice president and COO Joy Russell in an emailed statement Monday.
If the Palisades and Big Rock Point sales are finalized, Holtec’s decommissioning business — a joint venture with SNC Lavalin — will have a total of five projects under its belt. The company is already working at Oyster Creek in New Jersey, Indian Point in New York and the Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts.
Editor’s note, 12/15/2021, 12:40 p.m. Eastern time. The story’s headline was updated, additional comment was added from Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear.
