Concerns over Holtec’s ability to finance the decommissioning of the Palisades nuclear plant, currently owned by Entergy Corp., rang loud at a public meeting held Tuesday afternoon to discuss the two companies’ request to swap ownership of the plant.
Holtec plans to submit the application in December. The plant is scheduled to operate into 2022.
The bulk of the critique came from Kevin Kamps, who works as the “radioactive waste watchdog” at Beyond Nuclear, a Maryland-based anti-nuclear nonprofit.
“My major concern about Holtec’s takeover of the Palisades site [is] that it will do a shallow cleanup leaving a lot of radioactive contamination behind to so-called ‘naturally attenuate’ into the environment, into Lake Michigan, into aquifers,” said Kamps. “And that it will also take shortcuts on high level radioactive waste management. That’s my concern, because Holtec is driven by a profit drive. And so they’re going to try to save as much money and then simply comment as pure profit.”
There’s currently $552 million in the Palisades decommissioning trust fund, Holtec’s chief operating officer Pam Cowan said. That’s slightly more than half the amount in the Pilgrim plant decommissioning trust fund, which holds around $1 billion.
When asked about the disparity between the two funds, NRC financial analyst Shawn Harrwell said he can’t speculate on the financial qualifications of applicants who haven’t submitted applications yet.
Cowan said Holtec won’t start decommissioning the facility without enough money to do so. Current plans allow for a three-year period after Holtec takes ownership of the firm, should the license be granted, to allow the decommissioning trust fund to grow at a rate of 2% per year.
“We’re a responsible company, and we’re not going to start the decommissioning and spending the funds until we’re sure we can complete the decommissioning,” Cowan said.
