Restarting the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan will create some 33,000 cubic feet of solid, low-level radioactive waste, Holtec International said in a regulatory filing published this week.
That would be a very small fraction, only 3% or so, of the roughly 1 million cubic feet of low-level waste that decommissioning the plant would create, Holtec, the plant owner, wrote in an Oct. 4 response to requests for additional information by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The figure is a best-guess based on a review of low-level waste shipments over “the past several years,” Holtec wrote in its Holtec responses, which the NRC posted on its website Tuesday. The document runs more than 300 pages.
Holtec wants to restart Palisades by August 2025. The NRC, in a September letter to Holtec’s head of regulatory affairs, said the agency expects it will take until July 31, 2025 to grant that relief.
Holtec has generated 12,000 cubic feet of Class A waste at Palisades since former plant owner Entergry shut the reactor down in 2022, according to the responses.
According to the responses published this week, Holtec’s expected volumes of restart-related waste are:
- 30,000 cubic feet of class “A” dry active waste.
- 200 cubic feet of class “C” filters.
- 1,600 cubic feet of class “A” resin.
- 240 cubic feet of class “B” resin.
“An additional 120 cubic feet of class “A” resin, 570 cubic feet of class “C” resin, and 1000 cubic feet of class “C” rradiated components is estimated to be generated from the primary coolant system decontamination project and he reactor head nozzle replacement (performed as part of the restart project),” Holtec wrote in its responses to NRC.
The Department of Energy, meanwhile, has loaned Holtec about $1.5 billion to help pay for upgrades needed to restart Palisades. The single largest item on the company’s to-do list for the restart is a new steam generator, expected to cost more than half a billion dollars.
