Federal regulators will hold a public meeting in Maryland this week to hear about plans to repair about 1,400 cracked cooling tubes at the shuttered Palisades nuclear plant before it reopens.
Palisades, which sits on the Lake Michigan shoreline just south of South Haven, stopped operations in 2022, but its owner, Holtec International, plans to restart operations by the end of this year. If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves the plan, it would be the first restart of a shuttered nuclear plant in the history of the U.S.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has held a series of public meetings to discuss the restart plans, and collect feedback.
The NRC is hosting this week’s meeting in Maryland, but a livestream is available.
At the meeting, representatives from Holtec are expected to detail their plans for fixing cracked tubes that were discovered in inspections over the summer. Rather than replacing the tubes, Holtec plans to apply “sleeving” which it says is an “industry-proven steam generator tube repair strategy.”
Some critics say the technique may not be enough.
Alan Blind, a retired nuclear engineer who worked at Palisades under its previous owner, agreed that sleeving is a valid strategy.
“But what assurances can you give us that another one of the other 8,000 tubes won’t crack in the next operating cycle?” Blind said.
Blind said he’s not opposed to the restart, and supports nuclear power. But he’s been critical of the regulatory process in the restart plans so far.
He said he’s not worried that there will be a nuclear catastrophe on the site, but he’s concerned if Holtec doesn’t replace the aging steam generators that feed into the cracked tubes, more tubes will crack in the near future, forcing the plant to shut down again.
Blind has filed a petition for the NRC to clarify its rules around restarting shuttered nuclear plants.
The U.S. Department of Energy has offered a $1.52 billion loan to support restarting Palisades. The state of Michigan has approved another $150 million.
The NRC has said it plans to issue its final licensing decisions on the restart by the end of July 2025.
“This estimate could change due to several factors such as requests for additional information and an unanticipated addition of scope to the review,” the NRC added in a letter to Holtec last September.
This week’s meeting in Maryland is scheduled for 1 p.m. EST. Details on the meeting, and a link to the livestream are available here.
