Beyond Nuclear Press Statement by Kevin Kamps, re: HOLTEC MISSING SELF-IMPOSED END OF 2025 DEADLINE TO RESTART CLOSED PALISADES NUCLEAR PLANT, and Enviro Coalition's Continued Pursuit of Federal Litigation against Unprecedented Atomic Reactor Zombification
Michael J Keegan
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NEWS FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR |
| Press Statement by Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps |
| re: HOLTEC MISSING SELF-IMPOSED END OF 2025 DEADLINE TO RESTART CLOSED PALISADES NUCLEAR PLANT, and Enviro Coalition's Continued Pursuit of Federal Litigation against Unprecedented Atomic Reactor Zombification
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| COVERT TWP., MI and WASHINGTON, D.C., DECEMBER 30, 2025--"For several long years now, Holtec International repeatedly stated, with false confidence, that its unprecedented* restart of the Palisades atomic reactor, reversing its closed-for-good status, would take place by the end of 2025. But restart has now been delayed until February or even March, 2026, according to Holtec’s own recent admission. Like clockwork, Holtec is significantly behind schedule. Nuclear power is often notoriously behind schedule, as well as over budget. As an example, the two newest reactors in the U.S., Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia, fired up seven years behind schedule, at a cost of $18.4 billion each, not $2.5 billion each like the Nuclear Energy Institute had predicted in 2001, nor $7.5 billion each, as Southern Nuclear and Georgia Power estimated in 2012. This schedule slippage begs the question, is the $3.52 billion in taxpayer and ratepayer bailouts already approved for Holtec's recommissioning of the Palisades nuclear power plant site also at risk, not to mention the additional more than dozen billion dollars in public subsidies Holtec is still seeking for zombie reactor restart, as well as so-called 'Small Modular Reactor' ("SMR") new builds on southwest Michigan's Lake Michigan shoreline? In fact, in mid-2022, Holtec -- secretly, to the U.S. Department of Energy, while requesting many billions of dollars in public bailouts -- predicted it could carry out the unprecedented* restart of the Palisades atomic reactor by mid-2024. A spring 2026 restart would mark nearly two years of delays beyond Holtec’s original restart schedule, which it put in writing. As time passed, even though Palisades' dangerously age-degraded condition, not to mention Holtec's utter incompetence, born of inexperience, made matters even worse at the 60-year old reactor, the company nonetheless continued to assure a 2025 restart, although the exact month slipped, from June, to August, October, then December. But as first reported by Reuters and Platts some weeks ago, and others since, Holtec now predicts a restart date of February or March, 2026, at the earliest. Even this delayed restart schedule is dubious, given a large number of unaddressed safety concerns and unanswered questions. But no matter exactly when Palisades restarts, it will create an existential risk to the Great Lakes, 21% of the entire planet's surface fresh water supply, 84% of North America’s, and 95% of the U.S.A.’s. Holtec’s Palisades restart scheme threatens radioactive contamination of the drinking water supply for more than 40 million people in eight U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and a very large number of Indigenous Nations. In fact, even prior to restart of the zombie reactor, Holtec already caused a large-scale release of ultra-hazardous hydrazine into Lake Michigan, just a few miles from the South Haven drinking water supply intake. Holtec's false assurances to Palisades' nearest neighbors, that no one was or will be harmed, ring hollow. Dr. Rosalie Bertell, founder of International Institute of Concern for Public Health, and author of the book No Immediate Danger? Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth, warned for decades about the bio-accumulation, bio-magnification, and bio-concentration of radioactivity and toxic chemicals up the food chain. Dr. Rachel Carson, matriarch of the environmental movement in this country, in her book Silent Spring, warned about the harmful, synergistic effects of mixing radioactivity and toxins in the environment, as in the drinking and irrigation water supply -- which Lake Michigan is for millions of people -- as well as the food chain, on top of which humans reside, at risk of exposure to the most concentrated, hazardous doses. Two "SMR-300s" at Palisades, slated by Holtec to fire up in 2030, would exacerbate safety risks. Worsening breakdown-phase risks at the zombie reactor, combined with break-in phase risks at the "SMR-300" new builds, would represent both extremes of the safety risk spectrum. Multiple reactors would risk a domino-effect chain of core meltdowns, as happened at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan beginning on March 11, 2011. Thus, our environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, Don't Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future, launched its first federal lawsuit against Holtec’s Palisades restart in November in federal district court in western Michigan. It challenges the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) approval of Holtec’s Exemption Request, which effectively reverses Palisades’ previous owner, Entergy’s, certification of permanent shutdown, docketed by NRC on June 13, 2022. That followed Palisades’ shutdown, 11 days earlier than planned, on May 20, 2022, after its latest in 50 years of chronic, safety-significant control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) seal leakage, the worst such operating experience in all of industry. Palisades' various owners -- Consumers Power/Consumers Energy, Entergy, and Holtec -- have never bothered to determine the root cause of the CRDM seal leaks, nor carried out comprehensive corrective actions, just Band-Aid fixes, over and over. NRC has allowed and enabled this risky behavior. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the U.S. Department of Justice, the NRC’s Office of General Counsel, and Holtec have all been served with our lawsuit. We look forward to our 'day in court' regarding our allegations of violations of the Atomic Energy Act and Administrative Procedure Act. We seek an injunction against NRC's unlawful approval of Holtec’s restart scheme. We would like to correct and clarify the record regarding our lawsuit recently reported by Bloomberg Law as having been terminated by the federal district court in west Michigan. That terminated lawsuit was filed in error, and our counsel notified the court immediately, requesting its termination. However, our actual lawsuit, against NRC’s approval of Holtec’s Palisades restart Exemption Request, is still pending, and the filing fee was paid by the deadline. We look forward to Chief Judge Hala Y. Jarbou of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan hearing the merits and substance of our lawsuit in the very near future. In addition, after exhausting all administrative remedies during more than three years of NRC staff activities, as well as Atomic Safety and Licensing Board proceedings, including inadequate or otherwise unlawful agency safety and environmental reviews and approvals, we have appealed the large number of adverse rulings against us to the five agency directors, the NRC commissioners themselves. If and when the NRC Commission also rules against our final appeals, we have potential options for multiple additional federal lawsuits against the agency’s reckless and illegal approval of Holtec’s Palisades restart. *Restarting a closed reactor is unprecedented in the U.S., although, as documented in the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2025, a closed Armenian reactor was restarted in the late 1980s. However, following the guidance of Soviet Bloc-era nuclear power precedents seems most unwise after the Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe. But, Constellation at Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Pennsylvania, and NextEra at Duane Arnold in Iowa, are following Holtec’s Palisades precedent, and scheming to restart closed reactors in those places as well. NRC bragged about this in its “NRC Reflects on 2025 Successes” press release on December 29, 2025. In the “Operating Reactors” section of its “Significant NRC 2025 Accomplishments” listing, NRC wrote: “The NRC authorized the restart of the Palisades Nuclear Power plant in Michigan - the first-ever regulatory approval of a reactor to restart after entering decommissioning. The NRC’s experience with Palisades is also being applied to two additional reactor restart projects, the Crane Clean Energy Center [formerly called Three Mile Island Unit 1] in Pennsylvania and Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa.” NRC seems to have forgotten that our environmental coalition has appealed numerous aspects of the agency's Palisades restart approval to the NRC Commissioners, and plans to appeal NRC's adverse rulings to the federal courts as well, if and when needed, due to their unlawfulness. NRC's premature 'celebration' of its 'success' and 'significant accomplishment' of approving Palisades' restart reflects the mockery of law and regulation that both Holtec and NRC have made for the past several years. Rather than brag about its 'success' at authorizing Palisades’ restart, NRC should be ashamed of its collusion with Holtec. As the Japanese Parliament concluded in 2012, such collusion between the Japanese nuclear power safety regulatory agency, Tokyo Electric Power Company, and government officials was the root cause of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. Such perilous collusion exists in spades at Palisades. NRC's supposed 'success' and 'significant accomplishment' of authorizing the restart of the Palisades atomic reactor could well end in epic failure, with catastrophic consequences for the Great Lakes State and the entire Great Lakes Basin." For more information, see Beyond Nuclear’s “Newest Nuke Nightmares at Palisades, 2022 to Present”. It is a one-stop-shop of web posts dating back to April 2022, when Holtec CEO Krishna Singh first floated “Small Modular Reactor” construction and operation at Palisades, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer first floated restarting the closed-for-good reactor, reversing Holtec’s previous, false promise/bait and switch trick/con job to decommission Palisades instead. |
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Radioactive Waste Specialist
Beyond Nuclear
7304 Carroll Avenue, #182
Takoma Park, Maryland 20912
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ke...@beyondnuclear.org
www.beyondnuclear.org
Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abolish both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.