The Palisades Nuclear Plant is located on Lake Michigan near South Haven, Michigan. The reactor is a Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactor that was put into operation at the end of 1971. It can generate up to seven hundred and fifty megawatts of electricity. It was owned by CMS Energy Corporation and operated by the Nuclear Management Company prior to April of 2007 at which time it was purchased by Entergy. The reactor was originally licensed to 2011. A twenty year extension was applied for in 2005 and granted in 2007.
The NRC plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of ten miles contains about thirty thousand people. The NRC ingesting pathway zone with a radius of fifty miles contains about one million three hundred thousand people. The risk of an earthquake that could damage the reactor is extremely low according to the NRC.
There are twenty one dry storage casks on the grounds that contain a total of six hundred and thirty tons of spent fuel. The casks were intended to be temporary storage until the Yucca Mountain Repository was opened. However, the Yucca Mountain Repository project was cancelled and the spent fuel will remain at the site until an alternative permanent storage facility is developed.
The Palisades Nuclear Plant has been rated as one of the three most unsafe reactors in the whole United States by the NRC. In the past two years, it has had dozens of leaks and been shut down seven times. However, the NRC announced at the end of 2012 that the reactor is no longer unsafe because they have increased in the number of inspections at the plant. The most recent shutdown took place in the middle of February, 2013. After a week was spent tracking down a leak in the cooling system, the reactor was restarted.
Local critics want the plant shut down permanently. They say that it is one of the oldest plants in the country and is disintegrating. They complain that the NRC has been focusing on staff and safety culture and that that is not enough. I would have to agree. It sounds like the plant and it’s equipment are falling apart. It is all very good and well for the NRC to make sure that the staff is following proper safety protocols but if the plant is just too old to maintain, all the inspections and safety protocols in the world will not prevent another problem with the physical plant.
The problems at this power plant appear to involve aging components and bad safety practices. The second is easier to correct than the first. And, the NRC would seem to be a little too optimistic in stating that the plant is now safe. Even with the best staff in the world, the NRC should not have granted a twenty year extension of the license. At best, there will be additional leaks, shutdowns and expensive repairs. The plant may fail completely and have to be shut down long before the twenty year extension has run out. And, of course, the worst case would be for a major accident to occur.
