It wasn't environmentalists that shut down Pilgrim, it was Entergy citing economic reasons. They could have easily spun it down but they're not in the business of keeping assets around it seems. They pick up plants at pennies on the dollar run them for a few years, then sell them off to decommissioning companies, amusingly enough, making a profit.

The only thing now that's making life difficult by environmentalists is dumping of water. They think it's going to irradiate their dunks ice coffee and kill their dog.