Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
9/25/2015
Should safety upgrades to the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Massachusetts prove too expensive, Entergy may opt to prematurely close the plant, an company official said this week.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this month downgraded the Pilgrim plant to Repetitive Degraded Cornerstone Column Four, the second to lowest performance category for a nuclear plant, following a series of unplanned shutdowns and unplanned shutdowns with complications in 2014 and 2015. In an effort to remedy these problems, Entergy in May invested $70 million to upgrade, replace, overhaul, and inspect hundreds of pieces of equipment. The NRC, though, found in a May special inspection that the performance of the plant’s safety relief valves was not up to regulation.
With the NRC’s recent findings, additional investment could sink the plant, according to a Pilgrim official. “If the corporation finds that the cost of making the improvements of the plant exceed the value of the plant, the corporation may decide to shut the plant down,” David Noyes, the plant’s director of regulatory and performance improvement, told the Boston Globe. “No business decision has been made about Pilgrim. We’re looking at specific conditions, and analyzing weaknesses associated with the plant. As of right now, we don’t know the costs.”
Pilgrim spokeswoman Lauren Burn echoed those sentiments this week. “We are still assessing the details of the NRC’s review and are looking at what actions it will take to enable Pilgrim Station to return to normal NRC oversight. No business decisions have been made,” she said.
The economics behind operating a nuclear power plant, particularly one in a merchant market, has put such facilities at risk. Competition from natural gas, along with a harsh federal energy policy toward nuclear, has hurt nuclear plants’ profitability. In the past couple years, five stations have announced premature shutdowns, with several citing the economic environment as a major influence in the decision to cease operations.
Entergy’s Vermont Yankee Nuclear Station in Vermont announced its premature shutdown in 2013 due to economic reasons, while Southern California Edison’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station announced its closure in 2012 after problems in its replacement steam generators proved too costly to fix.
Pilgrim’s tense relationship with state political leadership is another hurdle that could make operations difficult. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) has long opposed the nuclear plant, and following the NRC’s determination, he called for stringent safety improvements at the facility.
“For decades, I have raised concerns about Pilgrim’s operations, security preparedness, the safety of the surrounding communities in the event of a nuclear accident, and the willingness of Entergy to dedicate sufficient resources to run the reactor safely,” Markey said in a statement at the time of the NRC announcement. “Pilgrim has had long-standing and repetitive safety problems and unplanned shutdowns that require this an increased level of NRC oversight, especially since it is the same design as the reactors that melted down during the Fukushima nuclear disaster. NRC must continue this aggressive oversight until Entergy can prove unequivocally that it has dedicated the resources, manpower and training to guarantee the safe and secure operation of this reactor.”
