The Department of Energy (DOE) announced Wednesday that it would be funding a ten-digit loan to restore a 53-year-old nuclear power plant in Michigan that, due to regulatory hurdles, may close again after 2031.
DOE has committed to giving Holtec, a New Jersey-based energy company, a $1.5 billion loan to renovate the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Covert Township, Michigan, according to a press release from the department. [emphasis, links added]
The DOE says the plant, after being renovated, will “produce baseload clean power until at least 2051,” but that it would need to request a license renewal as its current certification only covers the facility through 2031.
“We don’t know if Holtec is going to be able to secure that extended license renewal, and that means the plant could have to shut down again in just a few years,” physicist Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Detroit News.
“That certainly raises questions about the capital investment in restarting at this point. Clearly, if they don’t expect to be able to run it for another 20 years, it probably wouldn’t make sense.”
Now that the plant has secured federal support, $150 million in state funds earmarked by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will be disbursed to aid the renovation effort, according to The Detroit News.
Palisades Nuclear Plant opened on New Year’s Eve 1971 and was decommissioned in 2022 after the DOE raised concerns about the plant’s safety. A seal on the device controlling atomic reaction at the facility had degraded by that point, The Associated Press reported.
A Holtec spokesperson directed the Daily Caller News Foundation to a press release the company put out on Wednesday detailing its commitment to safety.
“Prior to shut-down, Palisades operated in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) highest safety category, completed consecutive record-breaking production runs, and was recognized within the industry as a high performing plant,” the release reads.
“Like all commercial nuclear plants in the United States, a repowered Palisades would continue to operate under the independent federal oversight of the U.S. NRC.”
If renovated, the plant would produce 800 megawatts of power a day, according to the DOE. Whitmer says the plant will provide 600 jobs and produce hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefits.
Read rest at Daily Caller
In Australia, the country’s prime minister has said that nuclear power generation is okay for other countries, but not here in Australia. Would you believe it? That country has massive deposits of uranium and its current leader makes such an absurd comment to the public.
Many existing coal power stations are closing due to age and or economic pressure. Also, becasue there are huge subsidies being paid to renewables operators, coal power operators cannot afford to maintain their power stations and breakdowns are occurring.
In the meantime, the minsiter for energy and climate change is telling the Australian people the country will be a renewables power house, after he installs wind and solar factories all over the country, without coal, gas and certainly not nuclear as backup.
Australia is in serious trouble.
Yeah, total idiocy from ignorant fools who have no clue what it takes to run a reliable electric grid. Or what it’s going to be like when there are frequent and extended power outages for critical infrastructure like hospitals, water treatment plants, food processing plants, and all the things we depend on for our current living standards. Gonna go back to what it was like pre-industrial times when we burned candles for light, wood for heat and cooking, and dying young.
1st License Renewal (60 year operation) has been completed by most nuclear plants and some have been approved for secondary nd license renewal to 80 years. It is way less costly then building a new plant and way less than the loan guarantee they were granted ( less than 50 million)
I would prefer to see the United Nations Closed and the facility turned into a Homeless Shelter
Maybe the Biden administration could put pressure on NY to reopen the two plants that were still functioning as well as the plants in California. That is if they actually believe that CO2 is the devil’s gas and want to provide reliable base-load electricity that does not produce CO2.