Why Louisiana’s Electric Grid Failed in Hurricane Ida

Much of the state, including New Orleans, lost power for days because many of Entergy’s electrical poles and towers were not built to withstand a major hurricane, energy experts said.

As reported by the New York Times.

The Washington Post has previously reported similar stories.

New Orleans-based Entergy owns and operates several nuclear power plants across multiple Southern states.

It used to own merchant atomic reactors in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York, but closed them and sold the contaminated sites, and highly radioactive wastes stored on those sites, off to decommissioning companies (namely, NorthStar and Holtec).

Entergy still owns and operates the Palisades atomic reactor in southwest Michigan, but has applied, along with Holtec, to transfer away the license, after closing the reactor by May 31, 2022. The long-closed Big Rock Point nuclear power plant site in the northwest Lower Peninsula of MI would also be transferred from Entergy to Holtec, if NRC approves the scheme. Along with its environmental coalition partners, as well as the Office of the State of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, Beyond Nuclear has intervened against the license transfer.