Holtec International rebuffed in bid for federal funds to revive nuclear plant

CAMDEN – A federal regulator has pulled the plug on a South Jersey firm’s plan to restart a nuclear power plant.

Holtec International had been seeking funds from the U.S. Department of Energy to revive the Palisades nuclear faciity, a Michigan plant it acquired in June for decommissioning.

But the Camden firm has announced the agency’s decision was “not the outcome many had hoped for.”

“We fully understood that what we were attempting to do, re-starting a shuttered nuclear plant, would be both a challenge and a first for the nuclear industry,” Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien said in a statement on Nov. 18.

Holtec remains committed to the Michigan plant's “safe and timely decommissioning,” O'Brien said.

The Department of Energy has said it does not disclose information about unsuccessful applications ,including the identity of the applicants and the contents of any submission.

Holtec sought funding for the project from the federal Civil Nuclear Credit program, which is intended to extend the life of usable nuclear plants.

The plant’s former owner, Entergy, closed Palisades when its power supply ran out in May. Holtec then acquired the site in July through a business unit that decommissions nuclear power plants.

Holtec’s bid was supported by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, but was opposed by anti-nuclear activists.

Whitmer in September said the restart would provide 1,700 jobs at the plant and its surrounding community on the shore of Lake Michigan in the state's Southwest region.

She also said an operating nuclear plant would be a source of “clean, reliable energy production.”

If the Department of Energy provided Holtec with federal funds, Whitmer said, Michigan was prepared to find state aid and facilitate a power-purchase agreement.

But a spokesman for Beyond Nuclear, a group opposed to the use of nuclear power, said it was “thankful that this reactor has indeed been shut down before it melted down.”

Kevin Kamps, the activist group's representative, asserted Holtec was seeking $1 billion or more for a "zombie reactor nightmare.”

He said the 51-year old Michigan plant "has the worst embrittled reactor pressure vessel in the U.S., which was at increasing risk of catastrophic failure due to pressurized thermal shock.”

Kamps also claimed Palisades had “a severely degraded reactor lid and worn-out steam generators.”

Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Camden firm sought federal aid to restart nuclear plant in Michigan