In historic first, U.S. regulators greenlight reopening a nuclear plant
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission just approved restarting the Palisades nuclear plant.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission just gave the green light to restart a permanently-closed nuclear power station for the first time in U.S. history.
The Palisades nuclear plant in western Michigan shut down in May 2022 amid growing competition from cheap natural gas and renewables.
But as demand for electricity grew, and policymakers came to appreciate the value of atomic energy’s 24/7 carbon-free output, the Biden administration moved to restart the facility. No nuclear plant has ever reopened after a closing down for good.
The Biden-era Loan Programs Office at the Department of Energy gave Holtec International, the company that operates the plant, a $1.5 billion loan to fund the restart. Despite slashing funding to the Energy Department’s in-house lender, the Trump administration continued funding the project in Michigan, as this newsletter previously reported.
Last year, opponents of reopening Palisades warned that maintenance work on the single-reactor plant could delay the planned restart this year. But the NRC approval on Thursday puts the project on track for generating electrons again later this year, Holtec confirmed to this newsletter.
“This is a proud and historic moment for our team, for Michigan, and for the United States,” Holtec International President Kelly Trice said in a statement. “The NRC’s approval to transition Palisades back to an operating license represents an unprecedented milestone in U.S. nuclear energy.”
Anti-nuclear advocates have already promised to appeal the NRC approval, according to the Michigan news outlet MLive, which reported this news first. (This newsletter is the second outlet to report the NRC’s decision.)
The plant still faces some obstacles to coming back online. While the approval allows Holtec to load the reactor with fresh fuel, the NRC cautioned in its own press release that “there are still several licensing actions under NRC review and additional requirements that need to be met before the plant can start up under the original operating license.”
That license would expire on March 24, 2031.
Though Holtec bought the site to decommission the plant, the company now plans to deploy the first of its own small modular reactors at the facility in the coming years. If the reactor comes back online as planned, it will mark a turning point for the Florida-based company, transforming a business that primarily manufactures storage containers for nuclear waste and decommissions defunct plants into a power generator.
This post was updated at 10 p.m. EST to include details from the NRC’s press release.