While the project to restart the Palisades nuclear power plant moves full steam ahead, nuclear watchdog group Beyond Nuclear continues trying to slow it down.
Beyond Nuclear’s Kevin Kamps tells us the organization and four partners this week filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission protesting one aspect of Holtec’s plans at the site.
“We have challenged Holtec’s application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for what we consider to be band-aid fixes on a very severe safety problem, which is degradation of the steam generator tubes,” Kamps said.
Holtec’s proposal is to implement “sleeving” on those tubes, which Kamps says are extremely thin and needed for proper operation of the steam generators.
“The steam generators are critical to cooling the reactor core. So if you have a cascading failure of steam generator tubes, you can have a full-scale reactor core meltdown. So we’re very concerned about this lackadaisical approach of Holtec.”
Kamps says a need to replace the steam generators was identified nearly 20 years ago, but to do so would be tremendously expensive. Therefore, he says Holtec is looking at “band aids” to save money.
Now that the petition has been filed with the NRC, Kamps says a pre-hearing will be held to determine if the petitioners should get an actual hearing. Because Beyond Nuclear has been rebuffed by the NRC several times now, he’s expecting that hearing won’t be approved. He’s promising legal action once that last option with the NRC fails.
Kamps tells us opponents of restarting Palisades intend to “fight this thing to the bitter end.”
