Remember that this incompetent Clown heads the ENERGY DEPT.
His 2 predecessors were NUCLEAR PHYSICISTS, one with a Nobel Prize.
In Drumpf's nation, expertise, science and brains don't matter.
Some watchdogs wonder if Plymouth station will shut down as scheduled.
PLYMOUTH — Entergy Corp. has once again reversed a decision on closing one of its nuclear power plants, raising questions about its 2019 shutdown of the Pilgrim station.
A company spokesman, however, said there were no plans to keep the Plymouth plant open beyond the announced closure date.
Entergy announced a change in plans for Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan on Sept. 28.
Although the plant was scheduled to close permanently in October 2018, Palisades will instead continue churning out power for another four years, until the spring of 2022.
In a press release, Palisades’ site vice president said the decision was related to the financial terms in a power purchase agreement buyout, which made it more profitable to stay open for a while than to close.
A representative of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s public affairs office for the Midwest region said she was taken by surprise by the company’s announcement.
“I only found out about it from their press release,” Prema Chandrathil said.
It marked the second time Entergy announced a plant closure only to reverse its decision. The James A. Fitzpatrick Power Plant in New York also had been slated to close. It was saved by state tax credits and ultimately purchased by Exelon Corp.
The news about Palisades has made some watchdogs of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station — set to close May 31, 2019 — nervous.
Could the company change its mind regarding Pilgrim as well?
Mary Lampert, director of Pilgrim Watch, is monitoring developments closely at the plant.
“I’ve always felt there’s no reason to pop the cork on the Champagne bottles until Pilgrim’s not operating,” Lampert said. “Take Fitzpatrick. They were closing until Gov. (Andrew) Cuomo decided there was a need for upstate electricity and gave them subsidies. The same thing could happen here.”
If Entergy could secure clean-energy credits in Massachusetts similar to those provided to nuclear plants by New York and Illinois, “they might decide to hang in there with Pilgrim for a few years,” Lampert said.
Entergy can reverse its decision to close Pilgrim any time before the scheduled closure date in 2019.
“Two things have to happen before it’s irreversible,” said Neil Sheehan, NRC spokesman for the Northeast region: First, the owner notifies the commission that it has shut down the reactor for the last time, and second, it removes all the fuel from the reactor.
“Once that’s done, to start it back up again is almost like relicensing,” Sheehan said. “Until those things occur, they have the ability to reverse their decision.
“Having said that, we’ve heard nothing to make us think Entergy will reverse course on Pilgrim,” Sheehan said.
The state Department of Environmental Protection recently approved regulations for greenhouse gas emissions that contain a provision that prevents Pilgrim from picking up subsidies via energy credits because of its age.
Lampert pointed out that the state agency recently announced it was considering some expansion of those clean energy standards in the next year.
While confirming the department is contemplating an expansion of the standards, spokesman Edmund Coletta said, “We don’t anticipate Pilgrim being eligible for credits.”
Financial help may still be coming to the nation’s nuclear and coal plants, which would allow them to compete with less costly sources of electricity. U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week to bolster those industries in compensation for their making the country’s energy grid more resilient.
Perry said without some financial leveling of the playing field, reliable power generators such as nuclear and coal could not compete in the current market with less expensive energy sources such as natural gas.
Diane Turco, an outspoken plant opponent and director of the Cape Downwinders anti-nuclear group, remains confident Pilgrim will close as announced. The problem-plagued plant would require far too many costly repairs to stay online, Turco said.
And the plant would face tremendous public opposition to any decision to remain online. “People in the state are well educated on the dangers of Pilgrim, and they’re holding their breath until 2019,” she said.
Sean Mullin, a Plymouth resident and co-chairman of the state Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel, said he expected Entergy to close Pilgrim in May 2019 or before, based on the information he has.
“Circumstances can change,” Mullin said. “We need to carefully monitor market and regulatory factors which might cause Entergy to reconsider or reverse its decision.”
A spokesman for Entergy said there were no plans to keep Pilgrim open beyond the announced date. “Given our prior notification to ISO-New England related to Pilgrim’s scheduled retirement, we do not expect to revisit our decision,” Jerry Nappi wrote in an email.
ISO New England, the organization that handles electricity distribution, has required Entergy to keep operating Pilgrim until 2019 to fulfill its commitment to provide power. Entergy has forfeited its interconnection rights to the grid after that date.
“Under the current market rules, a retirement request is binding and cannot be reversed,” ISO New England spokeswoman Marcia Blomberg wrote in an email. “If the resource owner decides to reactivate a resource after it has been retired, the owner would have to apply to the ISO to interconnect to the power grid as if it were a new resource.”
Entergy had been in discussions to sell both Pilgrim and Palisades to Accelerated Decommissioning Partners, a professional decommissioning company, once the plants were closed. Although the deal was expected to be finalized by the end of this year, neither side would comment on the impact of Palisades’ continued power production on the sale.
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