What does it take to reverse stagnation? How difficult a task? America is finding out when it comes to one particular sector: nuclear energy. 

The Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan, shut down in 2022, is being revived in an unprecedented move. This restart, backed by nearly $2 billion in government funding, marks a significant shift in US energy policy. Driving factors include surging electricity demand from AI data centers, new financial incentives for nuclear power, and a changing perception of nuclear as clean energy. 

But shaking the rust off Atomic Age dreams is a daunting endeavor, according to the excellent Wall Street Journal long-read, “Can a Closed Nuclear Power Plant From the ’70s Be Brought Back to Life?” It’s not a walk in the park. Restarting Palisades faces significant technical challenges, including inspecting and upgrading aging systems. (“To restart the plant, [Holtec, the Florida-based company with experience only in decommissioning nuclear reactors] is working through the maze of interconnected industrial systems to turn them on, one by one, in a carefully choreographed process”). Regulatory hurdles are also substantial, as this is an unprecedented restart of a decommissioned plant. 

From the piece:

Some say reviving decommissioned plants is a faster and less expensive way to add to energy capacity. Building a new plant could take more than a decade, while the Palisades reopening is targeted for October 2025, around a year and a half after the restart process began. And the process of creating electricity from nuclear energy hasn’t fundamentally changed. Palisades’ owners believe the plant can reopen and operate for at least another 25 years. There are 22 nuclear reactors undergoing decommissioning in the U.S., a process that itself can take decades to complete, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A handful of those reactors, such as Three Mile Island’s Unit No. 1—the undamaged reactor next to the unit that partially melted down in 1979 in America’s worst nuclear accident—might be suitable to reopen, according to industry officials.

Still, it’s not a new power plant. Modern nuclear plants have significant safety upgrades such as improved defenses against meltdowns, climate change effects, and external threats such as cyberattacks. While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) asserts that all operating US plants, including Palisades, meet current safety standards, newer plants incorporate additional engineering improvements, such as gravity-fed cooling systems, learned from past disasters like Fukushima.

And how do we get a world of new reactors? Here are some thoughts on the matter from Thomas Hochman, a policy manager at the Foundation for American Innovation, where he focuses on regulatory and infrastructure policy (via my Faster, Please! newsletter):

Any nuclear buildout in the United States will require public-private collaboration, regardless of whether we decide to focus on building conventional reactors or next-gen designs: First, nuclear companies and state legislators will have to work together to update state regulatory frameworks in tandem with new technology. A recent success story in this regard comes from the nuclear fusion startup Helion, whose outreach to Washington policymakers ensured that nuclear fusion was distinguished from nuclear fission in the state’s planning documents — especially as it related to fusion’s comparatively few safety risks. This will support more reasonable regulatory rulemaking for Washington’s fusion industry moving forward, and should serve as an example for state governments across the country.

Second, a nuclear renaissance will be impossible without an enormous amount of public funding. There has never been a nuclear plant built without federal incentives in the United States. Vogtle, the most recent nuclear plant to come online in the US, required over $12 billion in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy. Tim Echols, the Georgia Public Service Commissioner who championed the Vogtle project, has said that there needs to be a federal backstop against cost overruns before Georgia approves any new nuclear projects. The future of nuclear power in the United States, much like the past, will involve billions of taxpayer dollars.

Nuclear power is still worth building in spite of its enormous capital costs — for its reliability, for its security, and for its role as a clean energy source. But conservatives in particular should be clear-eyed about the necessity of government involvement.

Going forward, Holtec plans to build two 300-megawatt small modular reactors at Palisades, using technology that reduces radioactive waste and eliminates pressurized vessels. The company aims to build by 2026 and operate by 2030. While Holtec has discussed this with the NRC, it hasn’t submitted a formal application, and the NRC hasn’t made any decisions.

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