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Coming Back to Life - Carbon-Free Power Needs Could Bring Palisades Nuclear Plant Back Online

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is preparing to oversee a restart of a shuttered nuclear power plant for the first time — the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. Other reactors have successfully restarted after stretches of inactivity but Palisades was in the process of being decommissioned and no longer has its operating license, so it faces a complicated — and unprecedented — path forward, helped in large part by a $1.52 billion conditional loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss what it will take to restart the Palisades plant, which could provide carbon-free electricity for 800,000 homes. 

Let’s start with some basics about traditional nuclear power, which we discussed recently in Uranium Fever. The Palisades plant is a pressurized water reactor (PWR), the most common design in operation, which uses uranium pellets to heat water through fission. (Fission occurs when a neutron hits a larger atom, splitting it into two smaller atoms.) The high-pressure hot water is used to boil water in the steam generators and produce steam. The steam is then used to spin large turbines that drive electric generators to produce electricity. Large nuclear power plants like Palisades can have an output of more than 1,000 megawatts (MW) and deliver up to 24 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) daily. They are mostly built on site and can cost many billions to construct and operate. Most nuclear plants in the U.S. have large concrete domes covering the reactors to contain any accidental radiation releases. Some have cooling towers and some use water from lakes, rivers or the ocean for cooling, meaning that access to large amounts of water is essential.

The Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan

Figure 1. The Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. Source: RBN

The Palisades Nuclear Plant, which operated from December 1971 to May 2022, has a complicated and polarizing history. The 800-MW facility is located on the shores of Lake Michigan (see Figure 1), nestled between the touristy beach getaway of South Haven and the Benton Harbor area. It was operated by the Nuclear Management Co. and CMS Energy until its sale to Entergy in April 2007 for $380 million. 

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