Anti-nuclear groups have united in an attempt to stop Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Generating Station from being brought back to life.  

The coalition — Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago and Three Mile Island Alert of Pennsylvania — argued in front of a trio of administrative law judges from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel that neither the NRC nor owner Holtec is putting enough thought into the restart of the plant.  

Holtec aims to bring Palisades back online in October. (See Holtec Confident on Late 2025 Restart of Palisades Nuclear Plant.)  

To revive Palisades, Holtec needs an exemption on the certifications granted as previous owner Entergy was shutting down the plant. The certifications prohibit operation of the reactor or placement of fuel into the reactor vessel. Additionally, Holtec needs four license amendments that will allow it to refuel the plant and restart operations. The quartet of amendments would alter technical specifications, revise an emergency plan to support the return of operations and update the methodology for studying potential consequences of a main steam line rupture.  

Beyond Nuclear and others entered a request for hearing in Holtec’s exemption and amendment requests (50-255). Oral argument pre-hearings were held virtually Feb. 12.  

Coalition attorney Wally Taylor said restarting a reactor in decommissioning status should require “more than just some paper shuffling, as Holtec and the NRC suggest.” 

Taylor argued that Holtec requires a new operating license, not a license adjustment to reopen Palisades.  

Taylor said Holtec and NRC “cobbled together a plan … to try to accomplish a restart” with licensing exemptions and adjustments because there is no regulatory pathway to restarting a closed and decommissioned nuclear reactor. He said Holtec and NRC’s “ad-hoc, patchwork” method to relicense a closed nuclear plant runs afoul of the Atomic Energy Act.  

According to the coalition, Holtec and the NRC are cherry-picking regulations that will ensure a restart while bypassing a new Updated Final Safety Analysis Report. The group said Holtec has admitted that “current regulations do not specify a particular mechanism for reauthorizing operation of a nuclear power plant after both certifications [regarding decommissioning] are submitted on the docket and before operating license expiration.” 

“Since there is no dedicated regulatory procedure for restarting a closed reactor, the NRC has no authority to approve the license amendments requested by Holtec,” the coalition argued in its October request for hearing.  

The group said Holtec currently holds an operating license that specifies that fuel is permanently removed from the core while no new fuel is introduced in the reactor. Absent a fresh license, the group argued that Palisades shouldn’t be allowed to produce electricity.  

The anti-nuclear groups also argue that the NRC is duty-bound to draw up a full environmental impact statement for a Palisades return pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act. Taylor said NRC staff erred by not ordering one and Holtec erred by not submitting an environmental report.  

NRC staff issued a draft environmental assessment in mid-January that found no significant impacts; the regulatory body doesn’t plan to move to a more intensive environmental impact statement.  

Michael Spencer, attorney for NRC staff, argued the coalition’s petition is inadmissible because the arguments attack existing regulatory frameworks or are outside of the scope of the case.  

Spencer also said the case involves an already constructed plant that safely operated for decades when Entergy voluntarily shut it down before its 2031 license end date. He pointed out that Holtec is attempting to restore a license to a plant that has undergone previous safety and environmental reviews.  

Spencer said the case is “not a forum for broader” debates about a Palisades reopening. He said the groups did not limit their arguments to the procedure and attacked the plant’s restart.  

Stan Blanton, an attorney for Holtec, said the groups inappropriately challenge NRC’s authority to permit a nuclear plant restart. He said Holtec’s plan is to “simply restore Palisades to its pre-decommissioning status.”  

“There’s no question about what regulations need to be followed,” Blanton argued, adding that Palisades has an operating license in effect that is applicable to NRC’s restart authority.   

Blanton said Holtec maintains the restart would not cause a major environmental impact that would require a formal environmental report.  

Blanton agreed with an administrative law judge’s statement that Holtec’s license exemption request can be likened to an officer waving a motorist through a red light.  

But the anti-nuclear groups argued that “Holtec’s legerdemain, to force all of the safety oversight for Palisades through the tiny eyelet” of a code in the federal regulations, “runs into the laws of chemistry and physics.”  

The groups contended that Holtec’s current path to a Palisades resurrection is a violation of 10 CFR 50.59, titled “Changes, tests and experiments,” in the Code of Federal Regulations. They maintained that Holtec should have petitioned the NRC before undertaking significant work at the reactor.  

“Without proper layup and very suspect planning for the reopening of Palisades, this aged, degraded reactor almost inevitably will face unforeseen engineering and operational difficulties, hitherto unrecognized safety issues, and the cussedness that accompanies any obsolescent machine or vehicle,” the coalition warned in its hearing request.  

The anti-nuclear groups’ petition included expert testimony from Arnold Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, who argued that after Entergy terminated the old Palisades operating license, a permit cannot be reissued to Holtec “without Palisades meeting the new, more stringent safety criteria of the 21st century.”  

Gundersen said since nuclear plants’ design basis assumptions are dramatically different than in the mid-1960s, the NRC must compel Holtec to revisit the plant’s assumptions. Gunderson said worsening climate change likely would create more frequent “unanticipated scenarios” outside of the design bounds. 

Gundersen also said he was concerned about damage from internal vibrations to the plant’s steam generator and Entergy disposing of “indispensable” quality assurance records. He said Holtec was moving at a reckless pace, borrowing a phrase from Union Admiral David Farragut as he commanded his fleet to enter Mobile Bay: “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.”