For Immediate Release
Contact: Bruce Brown, Sierra Club Southwest Michigan Group, admin@swmgsierrs.org
Sierra Club condemns decision by Entergy to reject Palisades Nuclear Power Plant buyout
Entergy plans to keep failing nuclear power plant open additional four years with no sign severe deficiencies in plant will be addressed.
Sierra Club has called on Entergy, Consumers Energy and the Michigan Public Service Commission to keep the promise that the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant will be closed in 2018. This week, Entergy rejected a plan by Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) to approve a proposed buyout of the power purchase agreement between Consumers Energy and Entergy at 79% of the amount proposed by the utility company. This announcement directly contradicts Entergy’s announcement in 2016 that they would close the troubled power plant in 2018.
The following statement by Bruce Brown, Sierra Club leader in Southwest Michigan, was issued today:
“The high cost of nuclear-powered electricity makes Entergy’s decision confounding. Entergy’s news release reiterated that it ‘remains committed to its strategy of exiting the merchant nuclear power business.’ Nuclear power can no longer compete in the wholesale electricity market. In recent years, the Louisiana-based company has closed, or announced plans to close, and sold off several of its nuclear plants. The cost of maintaining Palisades’ 46-year old buildings and equipment while meeting Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety standards can go nowhere but up.
“Meanwhile, the cost of wind- and solar-powered electricity is going nowhere but down—and fast. Moreover, Consumers and MPSC agreed that, with more and more lower-priced electricity coming online from renewable sources, Consumers doesn’t even need the overpriced electricity that the PPA will force it to keep buying from Palisades.
“Of the hundred or so public comments that MPSC received in its three public forums and through submissions to its online docket, almost all comments spoke of the plant’s threat to its neighbors, apprehension about the environmental effects of radioactive releases, and deep concern over high-level nuclear waste stockpiles that continue to build up at the site. The MPSC case could not address plant safety and proper handling of nuclear waste. Michiganders must not construe MPSC’s ruling as saying that the Commission believes Palisades to be safe and that its neighbors and the environment are in no danger.
"The Sierra Club remains unequivocally opposed to nuclear energy. All nuclear plants are dangerous. We are disappointed that the Palisades threat will continue beyond next October, and that electric ratepayers must continue to overpay.”
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