Trump’s Energy Department unfreezes funds for landmark nuclear project
The Loan Programs Office releases money for Holtec's Palisades revival.
I’ll have an exclusive story coming to you in the morning, so — for those of you in the Western Hemisphere — stay tuned to your inbox when you wake up tomorrow. For now, here’s some breaking news:
Shortly after taking office, The Trump administration froze funding at the Loan Programs Office, the Department of Energy’s in-house lender with a $400 billion financing authority. The office’s fate was considered the “biggest question mark” looming over the future of the agency under Trump 2.0.
Last month, the LPO OKed its first disbursement of money – $1.44 billion for a sustainable jet-fuel startup in Montana — but only after Republican Sen. Steve Daines intervened on behalf of the project in his state.
Now, in a sign that the administration is willing to honor loans that match its energy agenda, the LPO has approved its second payout to fund the nation’s first-ever reopening of a permanently shuttered nuclear power station.
On Monday night, the LPO announced the release of nearly $57 million of the more than $1.5 billion the Biden administration promised Holtec International to help restart the single-reactor at the Palisades nuclear plant in western Michigan.
The station was the last major atomic plant to shut down for financial reasons in the U.S. If Holtec is able to get it back up and running, it will be the first to come back online after closing down.
“Unleashing American energy dominance will require leveraging all energy sources that are affordable, reliable and secure - including nuclear energy,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in a statement. “Today’s action is yet another step toward advancing President Trump’s commitment to increase domestic energy production, bolster our security and lower costs for the American people.”
Last month, as I reported for Canary Media, Holtec unveiled plans to increase Palisades’ output by building a pair of its own small modular reactors at the plant.
But the revival and expansion depended on continued access to federal funding.
Wright pledged to bring about a nuclear “renaissance.”
“The long-awaited American nuclear renaissance must launch during President Trump’s administration. As global energy demand continues to grow, America must lead the commercialization of affordable and abundant nuclear energy,” Wright wrote in first secretarial order following his confirmation last month. “As such, the Department will work diligently and creatively to enable the rapid deployment and export of next-generation nuclear technology.”
But that could depend on what the administration’s allies in Congress decide to cut. Republicans in Congress are debating rolling back the landmark energy-spending laws former President Joe Biden passed, which directed billions of dollars toward a nuclear revival in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the U.S. remains far behind China, which is on track to vault past America to become the No. 1 user of atomic energy by the end of this decade. While Washington’s efforts in both the Biden and Trump administrations largely focus on small modular reactors, Beijing is building large units based on the only new U.S. design successfully started and completed since the Three Mile Island disaster.
For more on this, you can watch the seminar I gave to the East-West Center last month on China’s nuclear rise:
The soundtrack to this edition is a song from Netflix’s haunting animated sci-fi show, “Pantheon.” [WARNING: Spoiler alert] The song, based on a cover of the Gāyatrī Mantra, plays during scenes where one of the characters unknowingly toils after his employer uploaded his brain to a server, enslaving him. It’s dark. But the song is great, and luckily someone on Reddit knew a production assistant on the show and got the original track.
Signing off from a cool Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where it looks like we may — finally — be getting Citi Bikes.