Palisades Nuclear Power Plant being prepped for a second life
COVERT, Mich. -- ABC57’S Blake Parker got an exclusive look inside the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant Fri. afternoon, as the plant’s owner, Holtec Int. eyes a possible return to power by late 2025.
Now a year and a half in a potentially historic restart, Holtec’s Palisades is working to become the first nuclear plant to fully shut down, begin decommissioning, and then return to operation.
To get there, under the oversight of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Holtec has been doing repairs, upgrading equipment, and rehiring and training staff.
To goal is to get the NRC’s approval to transfer the current license in decommissioning status, to operational status.
“We’ve brought on talented new hires, many of them have been in nuclear power their entire lives, some of them are coming out of the U.S. Nuclear Navy program… and then we’re hiring from colleges and trade schools as well. So it’s a really nice balance of people who have spent decades at Palisades or many years at Palisades as well as new hires,” said the Senior Manager of Government Affairs for Holtec’s Palisades, Nick Culp.
Nuclear power plants typically do some repairs during their scheduled refueling outages every 18 months, but since Palisades shut down in 2022, they are doing all of the repairs and updates at once.
“You know, almost all of our systems are apart on the turbine deck, so… it’s pretty much unique right now,” said Turbine Senior Coordinator, Zack Scrip.
When it comes to why Holtec decided to attempt the possible restart, when they originally bought the plant with the intention to decommission it, Culp said they were asked.
“Holtec came in with the intent of decommissioning. We were very quickly approached by our partners in the state and federal government who said ‘would you be willing to a partner with us in making this plant the first to ever reopen in the history of the world’… we were more than willing to do that,” said Culp.
Nuclear power plants typically do some repairs during their scheduled refueling outages every 18 months, but since Palisades shut down in 2022, they are doing all of the repairs and updates at once.
“You know, almost all of our systems are apart on the turbine deck, so… it’s pretty much unique right now,” said Turbine Senior Coordinator, Zack Scrip.
As the first mothballed reactor ever being brought back online, safety engineer Anthony Houston said there are some challenges.
“The biggest roadblock I’d say that we’re trying to beat is complacency. These guys are used to working, uh, you know maybe a shorter outage, typical outage maybe a month long, and just as long at it takes to refuel, you work on a few components, but here we’re working on pretty much everything,” said Houston.
As of now, things at palisades are on track to be pumping out electricity by the fourth quarter of this year.
“Today as we speak we are on schedule and on budget, and of course safety and making sure the plant is reliable is our biggest priority, so while we remain on track, as we go through our inspection and upgrade schedule and start doing maintenance work in the facility, if there is something that needs to be done, it will be done before this plant comes back online. That’s our top priority,” said Culp.