Anti-nuclear activists call for broader environmental review on Palisades restart

As New Jersey-Based Holtec International works its way toward restarting the Palisades Nuclear Plant in West Michigan, a host of organizations are challenging regulator’s findings that reviving the reactor would not bring significant harm to the environment. 

The Palisades restart marks the first effort of its kind in the United States, with the federal government awarding the effort a $1.5 billion loan alongside $150 million in state funding to bring the facility back online. 

However the effort is not without its detractors, as some environmental organizations have argued against providing state funding for the effort, while other organizations have opposed the plant over safety and environmental concerns. 

In a virtual hearing Thursday morning, attorneys representing Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Three Mile Island Alert, and Nuclear Energy Information Services asked a panel Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel to accept a motion allowing them to file new and updated contentions. Those contentions argue the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission erred when it issued a finding of no significant impact for the project, allowing it to forgo a full review of environmental impacts.

“The position of the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] staff seems to be that, since the plant was operable in May 2022 that simply a return to operability means that there are no significant environmental impacts,” said Wallace Taylor, an attorney representing the anti-nuclear groups, arguing that the environmental analysis should have come from a perspective of retooling, recalibrating and restarting a dormant facility. 

The Commission issued a draft of its findings in January, where it outlined the purpose and need reviving the facility would serve, the level of environmental review needed and provided a description of the plant, any potential alternatives, and the various ways it could impact the environment. 

The environmental assessment cites Michigan’s standard for 100% clean energy by 2040, which includes provisions for nuclear energy and natural gas with 90% effective carbon capture technology in justifying the need for the project. It also argues the facility will enhance electrical reliability in the state by generating consistent, carbon-free energy and reducing the state’s reliance on imported energy sources. 

Although the commission reviewed alternatives like replacing the current reactor with a new reactor; replacing the reactor with other alternatives like natural gas, solar and wind; and using alternative system designs with the current reactor, it only provided further analysis for a no-action alternative, where it would deny the authorizations needed to bring Palisades back online. 

After reviewing a number of potential concerns, commission staff ultimately concluded the project would have no significant environmental impacts, and that choosing not to grant the authorizations Holtec needs to operate the plant would violate the purpose and need of the project: meeting clean energy demand. 

Terry Lodge, also representing the groups challenging the review, contended that the purpose of need statement was flawed, arguing it presents a restart of the plant as the only viable option without offering any justification or explanation of the demand for power. 

Lodge and Taylor also argued the limited consideration of alternatives to the plant was similarly problematic. 

“I think that it’s pretty obvious that renewable energy would have a lessened environmental impact than a nuclear plant, which would require uranium mining, which would require something to be done with the radioactive waste. There’s radioactive material, like tritium, for example, that comes from nuclear plants, and all of that would have to be considered to have a really appropriate discussion in the [environmental analysis], and that wasn’t done,” Taylor said. 

Lodge further contended that the impact of the project remains unclear, as Holtec is still working to identify whether it needs to replace key components of the reactor, like steam generators, arguing the environmental effects of the restart are not yet known and quantified.

While justifying their findings, commission staff explained that the purpose and needs statement is used to determine the range of alternatives considered within the assessment. 

Anita Naber, representing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, explained that the alternatives analysis is intended to determine whether there are other options available or environmentally preferable alternatives.

She later explained that while developing a purpose and need statement for their environmental analysis, staff members give substantial weight to the goals and needs of an applicant, in line with both the commission’s policy and case law. 

“The staff will look at the applicant’s purpose and need and the factual background and information that’s submitted by the applicant in support of that purpose and need and evaluate that. And that’s what the staff did for the Palisades restart environmental assessment,” Naber said. 

In offering their closing arguments to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, the plant’s opponents emphasized that an environmental impact should have been required for the project since the beginning, and would have required a much more in-depth analysis of alternatives. 

However, members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Holtec argued that the contentions filed by the opposing groups should be denied, as they were not responding to new information as required by the commission’s rules. Naber also noted that the commission expects petitioners to file contentions on the basis of an applicant’s environmental report rather than delaying them until after the staff issues its environmental analysis. 

“To have their contentions admitted for hearing, petitioners must demonstrate some sort of genuine factual or legal dispute with the staff draft [environmental analysis], which they have not done. They also need to provide actual fact or expert support for their assertion, but they have not done this either,” Naber said. 

On rebuttal, Lodge argued that the Commission’s rules allow petitioners to file new or amended contentions based on a draft or final environmental impact statement, environmental assessment or any supplements to those documents. 

“We timely and we believe properly under this section amended our contentions,” Lodge said, arguing their updated contentions should not be excluded as a result. 

The panel will take the matter under consideration and will determine whether to accept the opposition’s updated contentions.