How a shuttered power plant in Michigan could pave the way for more nuclear

The Palisades Power Plant on the shores of Lake Michigan had become a piece of history, a relic of an era when nuclear energy was viewed as the future.

The reactor in Covert, Michigan, about 70 miles of southwest of Grand Rapids, ceased operations in May 2022 after providing power to the industrial Midwestern state for more than 40 years.

The closure was part of a decade-long wave of reactor shutdowns in the U.S., as nuclear power struggled to compete against cheap, abundant natural gas in the wake of the shale boom and the rapid expansion renewable energy.

Plus, the power source had long been controversial, with opponents who feared the consequences of waste produced by the process or the potential of radiation leaks in the event of an accident.

But Palisades is now poised to become the first reactor in U.S. history to reopen after shutting down. Lawmakers on both sides of the political divide, tech companies and leading utilities increasingly view nuclear as a crucial source of reliable, carbon-free energy to supply rising electricity demand in the U.S. while slashing emissions to address climate change.

Holtec International, the privately held owner of the Palisades, aims for the plant to resume operations by the end of 2025 with the support of up to $1.5 billion in loans from the Department of Energy and $300 million in grants from the state of Michigan.

The plans to reopen Palisades are under review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. If successful, Palisades could provide a road map for other mothballed plants to resume operations such as Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

“It’s a bridge to our small modular reactor program,” Kelly Trice, president of Holtec, said in a nod to its long-term plan to nearly double the facility’s power generation in 2030 with small modular reactors. The new technology, which could become the first of its kind on the U.S. grid, promises to speed deployment of nuclear plants in the future.

“Our goal is to be able to increase plants in the country and elsewhere in the world with small modular reactors,” he said.

Florida-based Holtec bought Palisades in 2022 with the intention of dismantling it. The previous owner, Entergy, shut down the facility as its finances deteriorated under the strain of competing with cheap natural gas.

But Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer made restarting Palisades a priority, saying it could support the state’s push to produce all of its energy from clean sources by 2040. Whitmer signed bipartisan legislation that provided state funding and supported Holtec’s application for federal financing.

“It was not shut down for so long that it was irreversible,” Trice said. “This plant actually had a 10-year period where we weren’t going to do heavy decommissioning work.”

A restart of Palisades could mark a turning point for the nuclear industry after a decade in which a dozen…