The Nuclear Reactor Next Door Series

This podcast focuses on the unprecedented plan to restart the dangerously obsolete and severely age-degraded Palisades nuclear reactor on the Lake Michigan shoreline near South Haven. In the face of decade long delays, billions in cost overruns and dozens of cancellations, the nuclear power industry is promoting this insanely expensive, high-risk $8.3 billion pilot project. Against all odds, utilities see a Palisades restart as the way to quickly bring failed and shuttered nuclear reactors around the world back from the dead. Holtec International, the company that wants to restart Palisades, has never operated a nuclear reactor.

ABOUT THE NUCLEAR REACTOR NEXT DOOR SERIES

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This podcast focuses on the unprecedented plan to restart the dangerously obsolete and severely age-degraded Palisades nuclear reactor on the Lake Michigan shoreline near South Haven. In the face of decade long delays, billions in cost overruns and dozens of cancellations, the nuclear power industry is promoting this insanely expensive, high-risk $8.3 billion pilot project. Against all odds, utilities see a Palisades restart as the way to quickly bring failed and shuttered nuclear reactors around the world back from the dead. Holtec International, the company that wants to restart Palisades, has never operated a nuclear reactor.

Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering professor of civil and environmental energy Mark Jacobson directs the university’s Atmosphere/Energy Program.

He says the cost of nuclear power from America’s two most recently opened plants in Georgia is $16 per watt. “That does not compare favorably with onshore wind and solar which can be as low as $1 per watt."

One of the world’s leading climate experts, Dr. Jacobson does not see a future for nuclear power.

He points out that nuclear power plants can take nine to 15 years for construction, and 17 to 22 years overall from planning to operation in the U.S. and Europe, and 12 to 22 years worldwide. Georgia’s new Vogtle plants were finished seven years late and $17 billion over budget. New wind and solar facilities take one to three years to complete.

"The clean nuclear power argument from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy is nonsense,” says Jacobson. “Mined uranium does not show up in perfect form. It must be refined, which takes a lot of energy and causes pollution. Nuclear reactors are belching huge amounts of water vapor and heat, contributing to local and global warming. Evaporated water from the giant steam generators is a greenhouse gas."

“New nuclear power plants cost 2.3 to 7.4 times those of onshore wind or utility solar PV per watt, take five to 17 years longer between planning and operation, and produce nine to 37 times the emissions per watt as wind.”

Investigative reporter Roger Rapoport's fascinating interview with veteran nuclear executive Alan Blind offers an inside look at his six years as engineering director at Palisades Nuclear Power Plant located on the Lake Michigan shore. Blind, who worked for decades as a senior nuclear power plant executive in Michigan, New York and Canada, focuses on the unprecedented plan to restart this reactor.

Palisades has been uniquely exempt from more than 50 standard Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations for decades including the industry’s critically important fire code. This proposed first ever restart of a closed reactor raises major concerns surrounding corrosion of the steam generator, radioactive contamination inside the containment structure, radioactive reactor water leaking into the plant control room, and high level radioactive waste on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Blind’s two-part interview looks at much less expensive alternatives to nuclear power including zero carbon wind, water, solar and other renewables.

This podcast focuses on the unprecedented plan to restart the dangerously obsolete and severely age-degraded Palisades nuclear reactor on the Lake Michigan shoreline near South Haven. In the face of decade long delays, billions in cost overruns and dozens of cancellations, the nuclear power industry is promoting this insanely expensive, high-risk $8.3 billion pilot project. Against all odds, utilities see a Palisades restart as the way to quickly bring failed and shuttered nuclear reactors around the world back from the dead. Holtec International, the company that wants to restart Palisades, has never operated a nuclear reactor.