Palisades nuclear plant along Lake Michigan plans for a 2025 comeback, a 1st in the US 

BY LUCY VALESKI, MICHIGAN ADVANCE

MICHIGAN—On the shores of Lake Michigan at the Palisades nuclear plant, Paul Schultz pushes a button to artificially trip the reactor in a training version of an operation room.

The simulation triggers lights blinking on the walls and machinery, and Schultz works to shut down the reactor with Paul Rhodes, an assistant operations manager of training.

Schultz is in training and hopes to become a licensed operator by the time the Palisades nuclear reactor in Southwest Michigan reopens, which is expected to happen in October 2025.

Around a year ago, that training building with the mock operation room had been empty, according to Nick Culp, a spokesperson with the facility’s owner, Florida-based Holtec International. But now, the parking lot outside is nearly full and workers sit in classrooms preparing for the plant’s comeback.

Palisades—which is located in Covert Township, between the beach towns of South Haven and St. Joseph—could be the first nuclear plant in the country to restart after filing to decommission. And Todd Allen, chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan, suspects it won’t be the last.

“If Palisades successfully gets their operating license back, it could set a precedent that that’s possible,” Allen said. “And you’ve now got other plants around the country saying, ‘we might want to do that too.’ So it’s sort of significant, not only for the state of Michigan; it could be significant across the country.”

The reopening plans come as Michigan, and other states, push to meet “clean” energy goals and brace for increased energy demands coming from new infrastructure, like data centers.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled plans for the US to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050 and deploy another 200 gigawatts of nuclear energy capacity, Bloomberg News reported. That would be accomplished by building new reactors, upgrading existing facilities and restarting plants.

The Palisades plant has a capacity of 800 megawatts.

“Suddenly, you have both an economic and a climate reason to keep these plants going that just did not exist, say, five years ago, and we just were not having this discussion,” Allen said. “Five years ago, a plant shuts down, and it’s done. I think that’s what’s different, that’s the impetus to possibly restarting the plant.”

The plant closed in May 2022. Holtec purchased the plant from Entergy in June 2022 to decommission it, but the company started the filing process with the Nuclear Regulatory Committee to reopen Palisades in fall 2023.

To reopen, Holtec will have to prove the plant is safe to the regulator and reobtain an operating license. The process includes hiring staff, which for some employees, looks like at least 18 months of training, obtaining fuel, completing inspections and fixing up any problems that arise. These processes are timely and have a high price tag, which presents a barrier for the plant actually reopening.

Deciding whether that price tag is worth it to Holtec will determine if Palisades will be operational again, according to Allen. And at this point, Holtec is confident in its reopening plans, Culp told the Michigan Advance. 

State and federal support

Both state and federal governments have shown financial support for the plant’s reopening this year. And two Midwestern power companies, Michigan-based Wolverine and Indiana-based Hoosier Energy, agreed to purchase all of the generated energy from Holtec. In September, Wolverine received a federal grant to receive 435 megawatts of energy from Palisades.

The federal government committed to conditionally offer Holtec a $1.5 billion loan to reopen Palisades. Enabled by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Palisades received the funding because it promotes the Biden administration’s “clean” energy and infrastructure goals, according to Julie Kozeracki, a director at the US Department of Energy’s loan office.

Kozeracki told the Advance that Palisades was a good candidate for the loan because it recently started the decommissioning process and did not have to be built from scratch.

“It’s a lot less expensive than new construction,” Kozeracki said. “And so dollars per kilowatt, which is often how we compare nuclear costs, the Palisades project is a really great deal.”

A package of bills signed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November 2023 created a goal for Michigan to reach 100% carbon neutrality standards by 2040, a plan that moved up the deadline from 2050. Kara Cook, Michigan’s chief climate and energy strategist, said nuclear power is an important piece of the puzzle in reaching that goal.

“Nuclear is a really important component of us being able to meet that 100% clean energy standard by 2040,” Cook said. “It’s not going to be the only component, right? We need a diverse portfolio of clean energy resources in Michigan to make sure that we’re balancing the clean energy goals along with reliability and affordability.”

On top of the federal loan, which Holtec will have to prove it can repay, the Michigan Legislature included $150 million in the Fiscal Year 2025 budget to support Palisades’ reopening efforts. The Legislature had previously included $150 million in last year’s budget.

Nuclear power makes up nearly 20% of Michigan’s electricity production, which just surpasses the national average. Coal-fired production makes up over 16% of the state’s energy portfolio, with renewables, like wind and solar, coming in at 12%, as of 2023. Natural gas, which is permitted under the “clean” energy goals if the producers are using 90% effective carbon capture technology, makes up over half of the state’s output.

To reach those goals, Michigan will most likely have to expand its renewable or nuclear energy sector. While renewables are the preferred infrastructure  expansion amongst many environmental groups, the state investing in the Palisades plant demonstrates its plans to expand nuclear energy and make it a part of the “clean” energy portfolio.

Kozeracki said it is more affordable to create more nuclear energy by reopening a plant, like Palisades, that had begun the decommissioning process, as opposed to building a new one.

Holtec, Whitmer and U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm—a former Michigan governor—have also touted the new plant as an important economic investment in the community. According to Culp, Holtec employs over 480 employees on-site and has plans to have over 600 total workers from southwestern Michigan by reopening. Nearly half of employees will be represented by two bargaining unions, Utility Workers Union of America and United Government Security Officers of America. 

Opposition from residents, environmentalists

But not everyone living in Van Buren county supports the new plant. Some community members living near the plant protested when Whitmer and Granholm visited Palisades to unveil the federal loan, and comments left on the NRC’s public comment page demanded that the plant should not be reopened.

A coalition last month filed a petition to intervene with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and requested a hearing to oppose the restart of the Palisades plant over safety and environmental concerns, noting the facility is located on Lake Michigan.

Coalition members are: Beyond Nuclear; Don’t Waste Michigan; Michigan Safe Energy Future; Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago; and Three Mile Island Alert of Harrisburg, Pa.

“All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men, will court disaster if they try to run Palisades again,” said Alice Hirt of Holland, an intervenor on behalf of Don’t Waste Michigan, a statewide, grassroots nuclear watchdog group for the past four decades.

Additionally, some environmental groups didn’t support the state’s budget helping fund the reopening of Palisades.

Charlotte Jameson, the chief policy officer at the Michigan Environmental Council, said the organization wanted the state to invest more money in renewables, like solar and wind, instead of nuclear power. Jameson said the group’s platform acknowledges that currently operating nuclear reactors should keep running, but they oppose the state funding new plants. While Palisades is not technically a “new” plant, its reopening would expand nuclear production in Michigan.

“We wanted that nuclear energy, that capacity, to remain online, the existing capacity that we had, but we wanted it to help displace fossil generation, as opposed to minimize the amount of renewables that we were going to be building,” Jameson said.

Jameson said she doesn’t see new nuclear plants, apart from Palisades, being built fast enough to accommodate increased energy demand, which will come with the potential proliferation of infrastructure like data centers and electric vehicles. Nuclear plants take several years to build out and reach safety compliance with federal regulation, a hang-up that wind and solar power don’t have, according to Jameson.

But Jameson said Michigan still needs to invest in these renewable technologies to accommodate for the incoming “energy hogs,” as described by Allen. She told the Advance she fears that without the investment in renewable energy, data centers will turn to natural gas production if the current wind, solar and nuclear energy portfolio does not meet the energy demands. Jameson described natural gas as the “real threat,” which is predominantly made up of the greenhouse gas methane.

“What we’ve been asking for in terms of conversations around data centers and others is we’re fine with you coming into the state, make an investment here,” Jameson said. “But at the same time, you need to build and you need to work with utilities to build more renewables that account for your additional load on the system.”

Bipartisan support for nuclear power, but what will Trump do?

Nuclear energy has bipartisan support among state and federal lawmakers, which contributes to the government investments made in reopening Palisades.

This could make it a more politically popular avenue for lawmakers to back energy sources that don’t create carbon emissions. Michigan has its own bipartisan nuclear energy caucus.

Allen attributes this to Democratic goals surrounding climate change and GOP plans to create jobs and strengthen the economy. Both sides of the aisle have shown support for job creation this election cycle.

“Because of climate change, more Democrats, or left-leaning people, are willing to at least have a discussion on nuclear, if not support it,” Allen said.  “For Republicans or right-leaning people, I don’t think it’s ever been climate change. It’s jobs and national security. They like it for two very different reasons, but they both like it, and they’re willing to work together, even though their values and motivations can be very different.”

State. Rep. Graham Filler (R-St. Johns), who co-chairs the nuclear caucus, said he sees bipartisan support for nuclear energy because of its “clean” benefits, ability to make the U.S. more energy independent and the possibility for economic growth. While plants like Palisades create jobs for the community, he also believes that building more nuclear power will encourage industries, like artificial intelligence, to come to Michigan.

“If we want to be on the cutting edge of providing reliable, powerful, affordable energy, nuclear puts you on that cutting edge,” Filler said. “…It makes you a more attractive state to pull in businesses, to pull in major manufacturers, to claim to citizens moving to us, saying, ‘Hey, we’re reliable. We’ve got nuclear power, which has proven to be great.”

While Michigan wrestles with the best ways to forge into an energy future with less carbon emissions, investment in the Palisades plant reopening indicates lawmakers see nuclear as part of the equation.

“You got to set a base because you’re working with legislators and legislatures that, for many years, couldn’t say the word nuclear,” Filler said.  “So there’s been a change. There has been a change, and that is exciting, but I just really tell people that it’s a long-term play.”

However, President-elect Donald Trump is seen as a bit of a wild card when it comes to nuclear power.

In October, the Republican said while nuclear energy is “very clean,” building more reactors raises cost and safety concerns.

“They get too big, and too complex and too expensive,” Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan. “I think there’s a little danger in nuclear.”

READ MORE: Federal funds to restart Michigan nuclear plant, mark ‘powerful clean energy comeback story’

This coverage was republished from Michigan Advance pursuant to a Creative Commons license.