There won’t be any significant environmental or safety issues if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows Holtec International to dip into a Michigan nuclear plant’s decommissioning funds for nuclear waste management, the agency said recently.
Granting Holtec an exemption to use Palisades Nuclear Generating Station’s decommissioning trust fund for spent fuel management and site restoration activities “would not have a significant adverse effect on the probability of an accident occurring, and would not have any significant radiological or non-radiological impacts,” NRC said in a report dated Nov. 18 and made public Monday. Holtec initially requested the exemption in Dec. 2020, the report said.
NRC had yet to approve the exemption by deadline Tuesday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
Such accommodations have been eyed with suspicion by opponents of nuclear decommissioning.
In a February complaint to NRC, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel raised concerns that Holtec couldn’t fund proper decommissioning at Palisades without an NRC exemption allowing it to use trust fund money. Another Holtec decommissioning project — the recently-shuttered Indian Point Energy Center in New York — came under similar scrutiny from the state’s top lawyer in January.
Meanwhile, NRC is weighing whether to allow Palisades’s sale to Holtec from Entergy. Holtec has said that it expects the agency to approve the Covert, Mich., plant’s license transfer in January and that the transaction should be finalized in June.
