Entergy Nuclear, infamous for "buying reactors cheap, then running them into the ground"

The Kalamazoo Gazette has quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps responding to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's downgrading of the Palisades nuclear power plant's safety status as one of the worst in the country. The call has gone out from grassroots Vermont Yankee watchdogs for the formation of an "Entergy Watch," to monitor reactor risks at the second biggest corporate nuclear power fleet across the U.S., which includes the following dozen atomic reactors at 10 different nuclear power plants: Arkansas Nuclear One, Units 1 and 2; Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska; FitzPatrick in upstate New York; Grand Gulf in Mississippi; Indian Point Units 2 and 3 near New York City; Palisades in Michigan; Pilgrim near Boston; Riverbend in Louisiana;Vermont Yankee; and Waterford in Louisiana. Of these, Cooper, FitzPatrick, Pilgrim, and Vermont Yankee are General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactors (GE BWR Mark Is), identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4, the focus of Beyond Nuclear's "Freeze Our Fukushimas" shutdown campaign. 

As Beyond Nuclear spelled out in a recent backgrounder, GE BWR Mark I storage pools for high-level radioactive waste are especially vulernable to catastrophic radioactivity releases, whether due to natural disaster, accident or attack.

Despite such risks, the NRC has rubberstamped the following 20 year license extensions at Entergy's Arkansas Nuclear One Units 1 and 2; Cooper; FitzPatrick; Palisades; and Vermont Yankee. Pilgrim applied for its license extension on Jan. 27, 2006, but has been opposed for over six years by Pilgrim Watch, in what has become the longest relicensing battle in NRC history. Indian Point applied for its license extension on April 30, 2007, but has been opposed ever since by such groups as Hudson Riverkeeper and Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition.