Nuclear Licensing Board Examines Brittle Vessel Risks
at Entergy’s Palisades Atomic Reactor

Critics Call for Permanent Shutdown, to Avert Catastrophic Meltdown 

Covert, MI—Representatives and legal counsel for a grassroots coalition of environmental groups and concerned local residents testified today before a panel of three administrative law judges at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB), at the agency’s headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. The ASLB panel convened the oral argument pre-hearing to determine whether the intervention, filed last year by Beyond Nuclear (Takoma Park, Maryland), Don’t Waste Michigan (Grand Rapids), Michigan Safe Energy Future—Shoreline Chapter (South Haven), and Nuclear Energy Information Service (Chicago) should proceed to a full evidentiary hearing on the merits of the coalition’s contentions. The ASLB panel will rule on contention admissibility within 45 days.

On Dec. 1, 2014, the coalition intervened against Entergy Nuclear’s License Amendment Application (LAR) to the NRC at its Palisades atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shore in Covert, Michigan, south of South Haven. The LAR seeks to apply an alternate reactor pressure vessel (RPV) fracture toughness rule at Palisades. If successful, the intervention could force the permanent shutdown of the 44-year-old atomic reactor, one of the oldest in the country. The coalition cites the risk of catastrophic release of hazardous radioactivity to the environment due to Pressurized Thermal Shock (PTS) fracturing the neutron radiation-embrittled RPV, causing a Loss-of-Coolant-Accident (LOCA), core meltdown, and containment failure.

The RPV contains the reactor core and its highly radioactive nuclear fuel. Palisades has long had the worst-embrittled RPV in the U.S., caused by neutron radiation bombardment impacting soft metal impurities – such as copper, nickel, manganese, and phosphorus -- in the RPV walls and welds. The age-related degradation has been so bad, for so long, at Palisades, that the nuclear utility, and NRC, had previously indicated “End-of-Life,” permanent closure dates as early as 1995. However, that has been postponed till 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2014, April 2017, and now August 2017, thanks to various regulatory rollbacks over the years and decades. Entergy has now applied to NRC for yet another weakening of the rules, to allow continued operation till the current, extended operating license expiration date of 2031. 

A severe over-cooling of the RPV, as due to activation of the emergency core cooling system (ECCS), combined with sudden re-pressurization, could cause PTS – a one-two punch that fractures the RPV metal or welds at an internal flaw.

“With the continued identification of aging equipment failure at Entergy’s Palisades Nuclear Plant and Entergy’s repeated side-stepping of safe operation procedures, it is evident to the watchdog groups that the longer Palisades is allowed to operate the greater its risk of a breakdown phase accident and catastrophic release of hazardous radioactivity to the Michigan area and the larger Great Lakes region,” said Bette Pierman of Benton Harbor, Chairman of Michigan Safe Energy Future—Shoreline Chapter. “It is time to shut Palisades down before we are faced with this emergency from which we, in our lifetimes, will not recover,” Pierman said.

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, Inc., provided an expert declaration in his critique of the beleaguered atomic reactor vessel. “By its continued operation as an embrittlement experiment, likely in violation of NRC regulations, the Palisades nuclear plant has become the symbol of a regulator-endorsed national test attempting to determine how long a damaged vessel can continue to operate without failing and having a major radiation release to the highly populated areas surrounding the plant,” stated Gundersen.

Gundersen has challenged NRC’s and Entergy’s over-reliance on mere mathematical estimates and extrapolation, rather than readily available, hard physical data. The last metal sample extracted and tested at Palisades was in 2003. The next scheduled is not until 2019. A sample from the early 1980s was simply ignored, because its revelations would have required Palisades to shut down. A 2007 test was canceled. Although Palisades has several metal surveillance coupons available in the RPV, they don’t plan to utilize them.

Alice Hirt with Don’t Waste Michigan in Holland said “I feel like Alice in Atomic Blunderland, hearing Humpty Dumpty tell me, 'We can’t take the metal sample, because if we take the sample, we won’t have any samples left to take.' ” Hirt added: “They operate the reactor vessel blind to the potential of shattering, which would render Lake Michigan and surrounding communities uninhabitable forever. This is not only theater of the absurd, but criminal negligence.”

“We’re simply trying to prevent a Fukushima nuclear catastrophe on the shoreline of the Great Lakes, drinking water supply for 40 million people,” said Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear.

Terry Lodge, an attorney based in Toledo, serves as legal counsel for the coalition.

The environmental intervention petition, and related documentation, is available at: www.beyondnuclear.org.