Mass. loses bid to have nuclear license reviewed

BOSTON – Massachusetts lost a bid for review of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision renewing the license of Entergy Corp.’s Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth, Bloomberg News reported.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston last week denied the state’s petition to review last year’s NRC order. Massachusetts had cited an “inadequate” environmental-impact study in opposing the renewal.
“The commonwealth’s substantive challenges to the NRC’s decisions are not based in any alleged failure on the part of the NRC to ensure basic health and safety under the Atomic Energy Act,” the appeals judges said in their opinion.
Massachusetts had claimed the NRC’s environmental-impact statement was inadequate in light of the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan from an earthquake in 2011. The state said the study failed to take into account possible accidents involving pools of spent fuel.
The ruling states that although the Japanese tsunami damaged three of the reactor’s six units, “virtually no damage occurred to any of the spent fuel pools on site and there were no spent fuel pool fires.” •

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