The Nuclear Regulatory Commission plans to approve the sale of two Michigan nuclear power plants to a decommissioning company by Dec. 13, the agency said in a letter last week.
NRC will issue “an order approving the transfer of licenses” of both Palisades Nuclear Generating Station and Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant to Holtec International from Entergy by mid-month, the agency’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation said in a letter to the commissioners dated Dec. 3. NRC’s approval will grant Holtec ownership of both plants as well as their on-site spent fuel storage facilities, the letter said.
Several stakeholders and environmental groups, including the state of Michigan, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, Beyond Nuclear and Don’t Waste Michigan have already objected to the plants’ sale and asked for a public hearing — those requests would remain on hold until after the license transfer is approved, NRC said.
In its February hearing request, Beyond Nuclear raised concerns about whether Camden, N.J.-based Holtec could afford to safely decommission Palisades and conduct spent fuel management at the already-dismantled Big Rock Point site — a typical challenge for decommissioning jobs. As of early this year, there was about $550 million in Palisades’s decommissioning trust fund, which Holtec plans to use for dismantling the plant and managing its spent fuel inventory.
Meanwhile, NRC’s planned approval comes as no surprise for Holtec. Vice president of regulatory and environmental affairs Andrea Sterdis predicted Nov. 1 that the Palisades sale would get the commission’s rubber stamp “no later than” January. The company plans to hammer out final details with Entergy in June of next year, Sterdis said.
Holtec and Entergy submitted their license transfer application for the plants in December. The companies first agreed to the sale in 2018. If the transaction is approved by NRC, Holtec has said that it should start decommissioning the Covert, Mich. Palisades site in 2025 and wrap things up by 2041 or so. The plant was scheduled to shut down in early 2022.
