Beyond Nuclear International Weekly Digest

Posted: 23rd November 2022

Holtec, a company with no reactor operating experience, had its bid to revive the closed Palisades reactor rejected. And the future isn’t going to be powered by small modular reactors, with no factories, no reactors and no fuel supplies coming any time soon, if at all. 
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Palisades reactor will stay closed

The US Department of Energy will not award funding to Holtec to reopen the Palisades reactor, closed in May and which the company is supposed to be decommissioning. It’s a welcome reprieve for the millions jeopardized by the reactor’s dangerously degraded condition. The US NRC should now take the opportunity to fully examine the reactor’s systems and safety parts to better inform license extensions at other reactors. READ MORE

No reactors, no fuel, no future

Most so-called advanced small modular reactors (SMRs) require a higher-enriched uranium fuel only made by Russia. Building reactor factories and fuel fabrication plants, never mind finding a proven design, will likely take decades. The pattern of new reactor construction, even where SMRs are starting, is the same as the old one—way behind and over budget. READ MORE

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