The state pension fund owns $49 million of Entergy stock, but that was not enough to sway Entergy shareholders at the company”™s annual meeting in Arkansas May 3 to shift the Indian Point nuclear facility to all-dry storage of fuel assemblies.
The measure, sponsored by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, failed by 73 percentage points (78.5 percent), with the remaining percentage abstentions, according to Entergy. The comptroller”™s office manages the state”™s $153 billion pension fund.
Dry-cask storage allows spent nuclear fuel that has already been cooled in a spent fuel pool to be surrounded by inert gas in a steel container called a cask. The cylinders provide several potential safety and security advantages over pool storage, according to DiNapoli, who cited a report by the National Academy of Sciences backing his assertion. Additionally, he said, the Union of Concerned Scientists recommends the transfer of spent nuclear fuel from storage pools into dry casks once it has cooled.
Entergy said it uses both wet and dry storage, including some 700 fuel assemblies in dry-cask storage.