The Palisades nuclear power plant is located on the shores of Lake Michigan near South Haven, Michigan. It is the oldest nuclear power plant in Michigan. The plant is scheduled to be permanently shut down in the spring of 2022.
Holtec International sells special containers called dry casks for storing spent nuclear fuel and they have experience in the transport of nuclear materials. As more and more nuclear power plants in the U.S. are closed and require decommissioning, Holtec hopes to become the preferred contractor that will be hired to decommission nuclear power plants.
Holtec recently formed a joint venture with SNC-Lavalin to purchase aging nuclear power plants slated for decommissioning. They are currently working on the purchase of the Palisades plant which would bring the number of nuclear power plants purchased from Entergy to four with a total of six nuclear reactors. Last summer, Entergy CFO Drew Marsh said, “The main objective was to move the risk to a party capable of [decommissioning] and doing it much quicker than we can.”
The proposed sale of the Palisades nuclear power plant to Holtec and SNC-Lavalin would include the plant, the NRC operating license, Big Rock Point and the spent nuclear fuel that is already stored onsite at Palisades in forty-six Holtec dry casks. There is a decommissioning trust fund for the Palisades plant that currently contains four hundred and twenty-Tfive million dollars. This is about thirty million dollars less than the NRC estimate of the cost of decommissioning Palisades.
Holtec is currently operating under the assumption that the NRC will give Holtec authorization to open a new, underground facility in New Mexico to store the spent nuclear fuel from Palisades. Holtec Chief Communications Officer Joy Russell recently sent a letter to a newspaper in New Jersey in which she said, “We expect Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval in 2020 for this facility. It will be then up to Congress and the U.S. Department of Energy to provide necessary funding to transport and store the used nuclear fuel… to New Mexico.” If the anticipated approval for the site does not materialize, Holtec will have to keep the spent nuclear fuel in Holtec dry casks at the Palisades plant until the U.S. constructs a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel.
Holtec will be able to use its own dry casks to store spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned nuclear power plants. They will also be able to capitalize on their experience in transporting nuclear materials. Both of these factors should lower the cost of decommissioning Palisades. If they can keep their costs below the money in the trust fund, they will be able to pocket the difference as profit.
While the NRC allows sixty years to decommission a nuclear power plant, Holtec believes that it can carry out decommissioning much more quickly. Kris Singh is the president and CEO of Holtec. He recently said, “The potential for the site to be released decades sooner for redevelopment could deliver significant benefits to local community stakeholders and the local economy.”