New horizons for nuclear power on the banks of Lake Michigan

BY: CAT CLIFFORD

Eight years ago, the Palisades nuclear plant in Covert, Michigan was slated for closure. But today, it’s humming with activity.

In an industry that has been stagnant for years, Palisades is getting a second act. Instead of systematically taking it apart as originally planned, hundreds of workers are bringing the plant back to life.

It’s a sign of new investment and interest taking hold in the nuclear industry.

“It went from me being able to park in the front row of the parking lot to, you get there now and there’s shuttle busses moving people,” said Patrick O’Brien, director of government affairs and communications at Holtec International, which bought the plant in 2018 to decommission it but reversed course three years ago.

If Holtec succeeds in restarting Palisades, it would be the first time in the nation’s history that a nuclear power reactor slated for decommissioning is turned back on. The decision came as Michigan was shutting coal-fired power generation sources, sentiment about nuclear energy was rebounding and demand for clean energy was increasing.

“Just because something’s never been done before does not mean it cannot be done in Michigan,” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said in a letter to then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm at the time.

Holtec has a $1.5 billion line of credit from the Loan Program Office (LPO) at the U.S. Energy Department, $300 million from the state of Michigan and will invest between $400 and $500 million of its own, O’Brien said, bringing the total cost north of $2 billion.

Legislation currently being negotiated in Congress could limit the capacity of the LPO, but the Energy Department has already made three disbursements to Palisades this year and Holtec is targeting an October turn-on date. In response to a request for comment, an Energy Department spokesperson directed Cipher to these disbursements.

President Trump signed a series of executive orders on Friday aimed at promoting the nuclear industry. One of the orders prioritizes federal loans and loan guarantees for nuclear projects, including for “restarting closed nuclear power plants.” 

The nation’s consumption of electricity is soaring to feed power-hungry data centers behind the artificial intelligence revolution. That trend is changing the calculus for companies like Holtec. In addition to its original plans for this site — building two new, smaller reactors — it has also proved irresistible to restart the existing reactor alongside the newer infrastructure.

Indeed, that increased demand is driving other nuclear restarts: Constellation Energy is reviving the nuclear power plant Three Mile Island, now named Crane Clean Energy Center, in Pennsylvania. And energy company Next Era is considering a restart of the Duane Arnold nuclear reactor in Palo, Iowa.

‘A very smart idea’

While restarting shuttered reactors is a new practice in the U.S., it has become common in Japan. The country shut down its entire fleet of nuclear reactors following the accident at the Fukushima power plant in 2011. In recent years, 14 of the country’s 33 reactors have come back online.

Check out Bill Spindle’s inside look at efforts to restart the world’s largest nuclear power plant in western Japan and what it was like to visit the plant.

Generally, the process of restarting a nuclear plant will take somewhere between two to four years, said Jacopo Buongiorno, a nuclear science and engineering professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“It’s a process, but it’s a very smart idea,” he said, as restarting a plant is cheaper and faster than building anew. “I am 100% in favor.”

Turning a nuclear reactor back on does not happen with the flip of a switch, however, and every plant that gets a reboot will do it differently.

When a nuclear reactor is idled, over time some pieces will begin to corrode and degrade, said Doug True, chief nuclear officer of technical and regulatory services at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based industry group. Getting a plant ready to turn back on requires going through a “very systematic process” of reviewing every component, “literally” walking the length of every pipe and wire and examining every motor, he said.

During the decommissioning process at Palisades, about 220 workers were on site, said O’Brien. Now 570 full-time Holtec staffers and between 900 and 1,000 specialty contractors are all working toward a restart (hence O’Brien’s parking headaches).

Holtec is forging new ground with technologies and processes it has designed just for Palisades. Some components of the plant are being refurbished on site; others are being transported on large flat-bed trucks to machining shops elsewhere, one indication of the complicated logistics involved. The generator exciter, which helps regulate voltage and weighs 31 tons, went to Charlotte, North Carolina on the back of a flat-bed truck and several enormous pump motors were sent to a facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

During inspections, one of the largest and most expensive parts in the reactor, the steam generator, showed “indications of the potential for cracking,” O’Brien said. Holtec’s repair plan involves plugging holes and “sleeving,” or bonding new material to the part, extending the life of the equipment by almost 30 years, according to Holtec. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the top federal regulator of the nuclear industry, is overseeing the fix.

It’s a long process, but it’s moving along. “We’re running under budget and on schedule — actually on an early schedule,” said Kelly Trice, president of Holtec.

A change in plans

Holtec started as a nuclear waste disposal firm in the 1980s, but became interested in buying and decommissioning old nuclear reactors in the late 2010s so it could use those sites to build small modular reactors, or SMRs, which produce less electricity than a traditional nuclear plant but are, theoretically, faster and cheaper to build. The licensing process for a new reactor is easier on sites of previous nuclear reactors, Trice said.

Holtec is still building two small modular reactors on the Palisades site and hopes to have them operating commercially in 2030.

The decision to restart the existing Palisades reactor alongside the new construction was logical because the plant is “in really good shape,” said Trice. Surging demand for clean power was a significant motivator.

But there was also an element of industry leadership, Trice said, “because at the time, everyone thought it was impossible.”