The company aiming to purchase a Michigan nuclear power plant won’t expedite the process even though the site went offline earlier than expected, a spokesperson said Monday.
Although Palisades Nuclear Generating Station shut down Friday, around 11 days earlier than its scheduled May 31 closure date, Holtec International has “no plans” to finalize the plant’s sale early, a company spokesperson told Exchange Monitor via email Monday. “The original schedule of late June is still the plan,” the spokesperson said.
Plant operator Entergy said in a press release Friday that Holtec would take control of the facility once it has been safely defueled. The utility didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about when that process would be complete.
If the Covert, Mich., plant’s sale is finalized in June, Holtec will have a total of four decommissioning projects under its belt. The company is currently working at New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts and Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey.
Meanwhile, Michigan’s attorney general and a cadre of anti-nuclear groups led by Beyond Nuclear are waiting on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide whether to hold a public hearing on Palisades’ sale to Holtec from Entergy. The commission approved the transaction in December.
Holtec in January told NRC that it had dissolved for convenience Comprehensive Decommissioning International (CDI), its joint venture with Canadian nuclear services company SNC-Lavalin. CDI, formed in 2018, was the primary contractor for decommissioning Palisades. Holtec has said that it would absorb the joint venture’s assets.
Holtec’s cooperation with SNC-Lavalin was one issue in Beyond Nuclear’s February 2021 hearing request. The anti-nuclear group raised concerns about the company’s 2013 debarment by the World Bank following misconduct related to a construction project in Bangladesh. Despite the 10-year duration of the sanctions, the international monetary body in 2021 lifted them early, citing compliance with the debarment agreement.
