Originally published by https://www.dontwastemichigan.org/
After a spate of mishaps and bad publicity at the Palisades nuclear plant, Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright visited the plant yesterday and predicted its reactor would restart in November, “I hope by the end of the month,” he said. But Wright’s upbeat tone only throws the plant’s dangerous disarray into sharper relief, advocates say.
Palisades reactor restart is two and a half years behind schedule and counting. In 2022, Holtec predicted it could restart the closed Palisades reactor by mid-2024. Holtec made that representation to secure a $1.52 billion DOE loan. The State of Michigan threw in another $300 million. But Holtec has never restarted or operated a nuclear plant before, and having blown many self-imposed deadlines since then, it currently won’t say when the reactor might restart.
Palisades restart has long been plagued with mishaps ranging from a worker falling into the reactor cavity and ingesting radioactive water to improperly stored, corroded stream generator tubes that Holtec’s own consultant said would likely fail within 14 months of startup.
In August, nine out of 15 Senior Reactor Operators and Reactor Operators at Palisades failed their licensing exams. Then during fuel loading activities that month, a highly radioactive spent fuel assembly nearly tipped over and was left teetering 60 degrees off the vertical, requiring an unprecedented, risky, improvised retrieval procedure to prevent a radiological release.
In October, Holtec’s former CFO who was fired for objecting to a false financial statement prevailed in a whistleblower lawsuit and was awarded $2.1 million, and the NRC found Holtec created a “chilled work environment” that deterred workers from coming forward to flag quality assurance and supply chain problems. Last week, The Financial Times reported that mishaps at Palisades and the NRC’s finding “prompted concerns among critics that financial and political pressures to revitalise nuclear power as an answer to booming AI-driven energy demand are increasing risks of accidents.”
"It’s a recipe for disaster,” Michael J. Keegan, chair of Don't Waste Michigan. “Baked into this rancid cake of Palisades restart are toxic ingredients: exhausted workers; chilled workers; lack of quality assurance; missing documentation; operator exam failures; defective equipment; inspections deferred for decades. Chris Wright tried to slather some icing it, but that’s just a whitewash. Palisades is in peril; it’s a ‘perfect storm’ blowing toward disaster.”
“Once they restart this zombie reactor, all bets are off,” said Kevin Kamps, Executive Director of Don't Waste Michigan, who is based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, 35 miles downwind of Palisades. “They are playing radioactive Russian roulette on the Lake Michigan shore, wasting billions of dollars of state and federal taxpayer money to do so. They are risking a Chornobyl- or Fukushima-scale catastrophe, putting in peril the Great Lakes, the Great Lakes State, and beyond.” Kamps gave an expert webinar last night overviewing Holtec scandals and mishaps at Palisades, which will be posted here.
"In the past two months, Palisades lost control and tipped a nuclear fuel bundle and couldn’t get it out,” said nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen. “Nine out of fifteen licensed reactor operators at Palisades failed their exam, and more than half of the people in their quality assurance and procurement departments feel they will be fired by management if they bring concerns forward. Organizationally, the quality assurance (QA) department reports directly to the plant manager. If quality assurance is feeling chilled, clearly the plant manager must be involved in pressuring that department. But ironically, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission just gave them permission to begin loading fuel again!"
Gundersen has 55 years of executive level experience as a nuclear engineer and serves as expert witness for Palisades environmental coalition intervenors who are actively engaged in challenging Palisades restart befor the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Documents for those legal Interventions available on request.
"Chilling effects letters are rare. Very rare," said nuclear engineer David Lochbaum, retired director of nuclear safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"That the people in QA in particular are being silenced is of extreme concern to all of us,” said Terry J. Lodge, attorney for Palisades Intervenors. “The NRC's criticism of the corporate culture at Palisades is a very serious allegation and I suspect silencing internal critics figures into the excessive speed Holtec attaches to the restart. They're moving too fast and bad things become more possible when there are a lot of unknowns about what will hold and what might not withstand a return of Palisades to power generation."
For more information and documentation on past and current developments at Palisades, please see <https://www.dontwastemichigan.org/HOLTEC.html>
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