Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff were scheduled to meet virtually on Tuesday with representatives of Holtec International to discuss the company’s planned restart of the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan.
The meeting, portions of which are closed to the public, was scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time, according to a notice on the NRC’s website. The virtual meet-up had been scheduled for Jan. 9 but was pushed back after the federal government closed that day to mourn the death of former President Jimmy Carter (D), according to the notice.
Much of the company’s 55-page slide presentation for the meeting, recently uploaded to NRC’s website, focuses on in-the-weeds regulatory compliance. However, Holtec and commission staff were scheduled to discuss a pair of degraded steam generators at Palisades that have drawn scrutiny for antinuclear activists and media.
Holtec has acknowledged that replacing steam generators at Palisades, which shut down in 2022 and has been in stasis ever since, is the most expensive part of pre-restart maintenance at the plant on the shores of Lake Michigan.
In a 2022 grant application made public by an anti-nuclear group in 2023, Holtec said replacing the steam generators could cost about $500 million, or 40% of the roughly $1.3 billion in financial aid the company has since received from the Department of Energy and Michigan. The federal government put up about $1 billion of the total.
Holtec aims to reopen Palisades by September but needs regulatory relief from the NRC to do it.
Editor’s note, January 14, 2025, 2:07 p.m. Eastern time. The story was corrected to show NRC’s reason for delaying the meeting.
