nuclear-news

The Pilgrim nuclear power plant not to close until 2019

Closing date set for Pilgrim nuclear power plant will close May 31, 2019, plant operator Entergy announced. Boston Globe By David Abel and John R. Ellement GLOBE STAFF  APRIL 14, 2016 The company that owns the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station said Thursday that it intends to refuel next year and continue operating the power plant in Plymouth for three more years.

Officials at Entergy Corp. said the plant will close on May 31, 2019. The company had been weighing whether to shutter the plant next year — as critics had hoped it would — before it would be required to start an expensive refueling process.

The decision means Pilgrim’s 609 employees will continue to work there until the plant closes, but activists say it also means Entergy will continue operating what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has deemed one of the nation’s least-safe reactors…….

Local activists who have long opposed the plant’s continued operations said they worry that Entergy is more concerned about its finances than public safety.

“The bottom line is that this decision is about Entergy’s pocketbook — not about public safety,” said Mary Lampert, director of Pilgrim Watch, a longtime critic of the plant. “This is an old plant, and Entergy is unwilling to spend the money to fix the problems, and the NRC is allowing them to do that. That means we’re in a heightened period of risk.”

Last October, Pilgrim said it would close no later than June 2019, after supplying power to more than a half-million homes and businesses for four decades. The announcement came a month after the NRC designated Pilgrim one of the nation’s three least-safe reactors.

Company officials have said they decided to close the plant because of the plummeting price of a competing fuel, natural gas, and the reluctance of federal and regional officials to provide financial incentives for nuclear power plants…….https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/04/14/pilgrim-nuclear-power-plant-close-may/FRXGHcfMrk3nSngdYueMML/story.html

April 15, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA