Former Palisades engineering director has misgivings about the plant’s historic restart effort

Tom Henry, The Blade, 9 Sept 24,

A former nuclear industry executive has emerged as a surprise critic of the historic effort to restart the Palisades nuclear plant in southwest Michigan.

Alan Blind, 71, who lives on a 16-acre farm in Baroda, Mich., said during a 75-minute interview with The Blade last week that Palisades, in his opinion, is “not a good selection as a role model for expanding the nuclear industry.”

Holtec International, of Jupiter, Fla., which originally was hired to decommission the plant, has instead bought it from its previous owner, New Orleans-based Entergy, and has put together an unprecedented plan to restart it.

Bringing a mothballed nuclear plant back into service has never been tried before in nuclear history.

The project has received huge government support, including a $1.52 billion commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The outcome is expected to have huge ramifications for the industry worldwide, given the prohibitive cost of building new plants from scratch and continued issues over less-expensive units known as small modular reactors.

Mr. Blind has special insight into Palisades because he served as its engineering director for nearly seven years under Entergy’s ownership, from May of 2006 through February of 2013.

Decades in industry

Palisades was the last stop in Mr. Blind’s career, which included time as a vice president at two other sites.

Mr. Blind began working in the nuclear industry in December of 1975 at a plant about 35 miles south of Palisades, the D.C. Cook nuclear plant near Bridgman, Mich.

That job came shortly after he graduated from Purdue University.

He he worked his way up to site vice president for D.C. Cook’s owner, American Electric Power.

After 21½ years at D.C. Cook, Mr. Blind went to New York to be vice president of nuclear power at the former Indian Point nuclear complex, which at the time was owned by Consolidated Edison Company of New York Inc.

He said he believed Palisades was operating on a thin safety margin while he was there, that he “saw a lot of red flags,” and never expected it to become the first test case of whether a mothballed plant can be put back in service.

“I put Palisades out of my mind and was comforted by the decision to shut it down and put it into decommissioning,” Mr. Blind said.

The plant was shut down and entered its decommissioning phase in May of 2022, a little more than two years ago……………………………………………………………

Palisades history……

Palisades began operating March 24, 1971, meaning that much of the engineering behind it occurred in the mid to late-1960s.

The NRC itself didn’t begin as a government agency until 1975, although it grew out of one called the Atomic Energy Commission, which had a much broader mission. The NRC is solely focused on safety. The AEC was created after World War II to promote and develop peaceful use of atomic science and technology.

The “defense in depth” concept that promotes use of multiple backup safety systems, as well as the NRC’s general design criteria, were not well-developed during the era Palisades was built, Mr. Blind said.

He said it’s akin to not having an old house brought up to modern building codes.

“Overall, I was concerned about the lack of safety systems and design in depth,” Mr. Blind said.

He said he wanted to see more done as Palisades — like many other nuclear reactors — went to longer fuel cycles and higher outputs.

“They started off with very little margin because of the age of the plant,” Mr. Blind said. “Those margins were razor thin.”

His concerns have made their way into three formal petitions he filed with the NRC last month, imploring the agency to slow down and think harder about the pros and cons of restarting Palisades.

Each are undergoing a lengthy review process the NRC uses when it receives such detailed petitions. One petition challenges the rulemaking process, citing the unprecedented nature of what Holtec is trying to do. Another claims there is a lack of quality assurance, and the third petition raises questions about the existing state of steam generators.

Mr. Blind said he expects to file a fourth petition with the NRC within the next 10 days, making a technical argument for a public hearing more extensive than what’s been held to date………………………………….. https://www.toledoblade.com/business/energy/2024/09/08/former-palisades-engineering-director-has-misgivings-about-the-plant-s-historic/stories/20240908054/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFMkQxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHR1G0iCbJRiP0yk2X0kR5WGv88UE6xH5Fsi9ycAnPz2Oo1TQWtlbaFI6DA_aem_-0oAmUfm0HdWnMUniKDfaA