I’ve been pretty hands off on the ongoing restart operation at the Palisades Nuclear facility on Lake Michigan. Generally, I wish them all the luck in the world, number one because I’m downwind, number two because low carbon electricity is good, and number three because a huge bipartisan majority exists that desperately wants this proof of concept to work, and has committed massive public funding to making it happen. (see below)
But this most recent incident does not sound normal or very auspicious for the effort.
COVERT TOWNSHIP, Michigan – Holtec’s Palisades Nuclear Power Plant continues to perform the work necessary to return the plant to safe and reliable operation, including fuel-loading-related activities, plant testing and restoration, and preparations for the next stages of startup. This Holtec Highlights issue summarizes the present status.
Fuel Loading Activities
Palisades entered Mode 6 (Refueling) and began loading fuel into the reactor vessel on August 30, 2026. During fuel-loading activities, one fuel assembly tilted from its upright position after it had been placed, and the fuel-handling machine grapple had been disengaged. Plant personnel responded promptly in accordance with established procedures, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was notified. Plant personnel evaluated the incident and determined that it did not trigger the safety reporting requirements under NRC regulations. Fuel loading remains paused while Holtec addresses the affected fuel assembly.
Consistent with the plant’s nuclear quality assurance program, a root cause evaluation has been initiated to determine the cause of the event and identify any resulting corrective actions. In parallel, Holtec’s corporate engineering division has devised and is developing equipment for the fuel retrieval and on-site storage equipment to return the fuel to the spent fuel pool. Palisades is also preparing a License Amendment Request (LAR) for submission to the NRC related to the proposed methodology to retrieve the assembly.
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A little history.
The Palisades Plant was part of the big nuclear buildout that occurred in the late 60s, early 70s, and came into operation in 1973.
For a decade or so, the plant was a problem child, having a series of problems with steam generator tubing, which an engineer described to me as “green grunge”, corrosion exacerbated by high radiation exposure to the exotic alloys used in the construction. There were a few years there where the plant was unavailable or operated at very, very low capacity.
At some point, the utility, Consumers Power, (now Consumers Energy) unloaded the operation to an independent power producer, Entergy, and through what means I do not know, they got the thing working, and it was pretty reliable and reasonably prices for several decades. (stacking up canisters of nuclear waste on the Lake Michigan beach, but never mind)
The plant was closed in 2022, following some mechanical problems which the operator deemed (I presume) too expensive to repair, and the plant attracted no buyers when a resale was offered. (red flag there)
The advent of AI, and increased electrical demand hatched the idea to restart the plant, and bipartisan funding, including 300 million from the Michigan legislature, 1.5 billion in Loan guarantees from DOE, and additional funding through other agencies.
Holtec International, a company that worked with nuclear waste storage, but with no previous experience in operating a plant, won the right to do the restart. To be sure, no company has any experience in restarting a mothballed nuclear plant, because prior to this, it’s never been done.
So there’s that.
In early 2025, I attended a “Nuclear Day” event at the capitol in Lansing, where I recorded Kelly Trice, Holtec President, and the man responsible for the restart effort, speaking to legislators, among others.
He walked through the various funding streams that were making the project possible, and projected a Fall, 2025, operation start.
Obviously, that goal has slipped, along with, apparently, some other stuff.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating a late-August incident at the Palisades nuclear power plant in west Michigan where a large assembly of nuclear fuel rods “tipped” during installation, halting the refueling process and requiring the plant’s operator to seek a license amendment from the federal regulator to retrieve the assembly from within the nuclear reactor vessel.
Neither the Palisades plant’s owner, Camden, New Jersey-based Holtec, nor NRC officials released information to the public about the incident for weeks. NRC spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng, in a Sept. 24 statement to the Free Press, stated “the tipped (not dropped) fuel assembly did not meet reporting requirements to the NRC.”
“There has been no radiological release and no workers or the public have been affected,” she said.
But a leading nuclear energy watchdog found the incident, and the lack of transparency about it, disturbing.
“I suspect that the rush to do things quickly is leading to mistakes − and you don’t like to have too many mistakes when you’re talking about a nuclear power plant,” said Edwin Lyman, a physicist and director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit based in Cambridge, Massachusetts focusing independent scientific research and citizen action on environmental, health and security issues.
