The former Big Rock Nuclear Power Plant in Charlevoix will have a new owner this year.
Holtec International plans to take control of the old nuclear plant this summer.
Holtec International is a diversified energy technology company that specializes in commercial nuclear and solar energy. Their decommissioning unit, Holtec Decommissioning International, will hire armed security for the nuclear plant and will be in charge of disposing the left over nuclear waste.
Charlevoix’s Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant operated from 1962 until the summer of 1997.
All buildings were demolished and other equipment was removed from the site in 2006. Security guards and spent nuclear fuel is all that remains at the Charlevoix plant.
“I believe there’s about six casts of spent nuclear fuel up there in containers,” said Holtec’s Senior Manager of Government Affairs, Patrick O’Brien.
In an email sent out to city council members, Charlevoix City Manager Mark Heydlauff says the company had planned to transfer the remaining nuclear waste at Big Rock to a site in southern Michigan.
O’Brien says that isn’t in Holtec’s plans.
“Big Rock fuel coming downstate is not allowed by state law and it’s not something that we’re looking into,” O’Brien explained.
O’Brien states that companies like Holtec exist because the federal government hasn’t done what it promised.
Yucca Mountain in Nevada is a nuclear waste repository created by the federal government in 1987. The repository was for spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste from nuclear plants around the U.S.
According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, Yucca Mountain was shutdown in 2010 without any safety or technical issues cited.
Holtec plans to eventually move the rest of the nuclear waste from Big Rock to their repository in New Mexico.
The Big Rock purchase is expected to be final by June, with the closing of the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant downstate in Covert Township.
Big Rock Tear Down
Vintage Big Rock Sign
Vintage Big Rock Plant 2
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