Junk Plant Plant: Permanent Shutdown May 2019

Well, at least they will be under intense scrutiny with the paper-whipping NRC.

The NRC requiring them to shutdown would give the agency instant cred? 

With the serious electricity over supply according to the NEISO ($25.25 megawatt watt-hour today)...there is no need of the plant.     

Closing date set for Pilgrim nuclear power plant

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 the power plant next year and continue operating for three more years.

Officials at Entergy Corp. said the plant in Plymouth 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 undergoes an expensive refueling process. 

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

“We’re pleased that we will be able to keep our team of hardworking, professional employees actively engaged in safe operations for the next three years and in a return to regular NRC and industry oversight,” said John Dent, Pilgrim’s vice president, in a statement posted on the company’s website. 

Local activists have long opposed the plant’s continued operations and 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 announced 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 US Nuclear Regulatory Commission 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. 

On Monday, company officials said they decided to refuel the plant because it was the best way to fulfill their commitments to provide power to the region’s electrical grid. The plant was obliged to provide power through 2019.

“This was the most viable way for us to do that,” said Patrick O’Brien, a Pilgrim spokesman. 

The decision to continue operating for another three years means that Pilgrim will undergo its last refueling in the spring of 2017. The plant must cease operations while it refuels every other year. 

The 2015 refueling outage resulted in a $70 million investment in the plant and hundreds of contractors, Entergy officials said. 

The company said it would release a plan to decommission the plant within two years after shutting down, as required by the NRC. 

The 680-megawatt plant, which opened in 1972, generates enough electricity to power more than 600,000 homes.

David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davabel.