Recommissioning & Restarts

The Michigan legislature on Wednesday evening easily passed a bill that would provide a $150-million grant to help restart the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Covert County. If signed by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the bill would provide half the funding that Holtec International, the current Palisades owner, has said it needed from the state […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV — Holtec International is considering several companies as possible operators of the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan, which the Florida-based decommissioning company hopes to restart, a company representative said here Thursday.  “We’ve been involved in conversations with a couple of different potential buyers for the power,” Patrick O’Brien, director of government affairs […]

A bipartisan group of Michigan lawmakers organized themselves into a new nuclear caucus and pledged their full support for reopening the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Covert Township to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (R). The 15 lawmakers spelled out their support for the plant’s reopening in a letter to the governor. The Governor and the heads […]

A land developer will not soon be building what amounts to a small city in the buffer zone around the Diablo Canyon Power Plant after a California court ruled Monday that the developer does not have a valid lease on the land. The Local San Luis Obispo Tribune first reported the proposed ruling in the Superior Court of […]

Holtec International will know by June or July whether it will get the funds it wants to restart the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Calvert, Mich., executives told Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff Wednesday. It was the most specific public timetable Holtec has set yet for the full-court fundraising press the company initiated to restart […]

Holtec International will know by June or July whether it will get the funds it wants to restart the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Calvert, Mich., executives told Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff Wednesday. It was the most specific public timetable Holtec has set yet for the full-court fundraising press the company initiated to restart […]

A land developer will not soon be building what amounts to a small city in the buffer zone around the Diablo Canyon Power Plant after a California court ruled Monday that the developer does not have a valid lease on the land. The Local San Luis Obispo Tribune first reported the proposed ruling in the […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm is holding out hope that the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan, which she governed from 2003 to 2007, will roar back to life. “There is hopefully an effort to try to revive that,” Granholm testified Thursday during a frequently contentious hearing of the House Energy and Commerce energy, climate, […]

Environmentalists sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to stop the planned extension of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, according to a court filing dated April 28. San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Friends of the Earth, and Environmental Working Group sued the commission in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that NRC’s […]

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission board in May plans to decide whether a citizen’s group can contest a utility’s plan to renew a license for storing the spent fuel of California’s last nuclear power plant, the commission said Monday. An NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board planned to hear arguments on May 24 from the San […]

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission board in May plans to decide whether a citizen’s group can contest a utility’s plan to renew a license for storing the spent fuel of California’s last nuclear power plant, the commission said Monday. An NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board planned to hear arguments on May 24 from the San […]

An environmentalist group on Tuesday sued the operator of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, seeking to keep the facility’s recently bailed-out reactors from operating beyond 2025. If it keeps Diablo Canyon open until at least 2030, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) would violate a 2016 contract with Friends of the Earth which stipulated […]

Holtec Decommissioning International wants the state of Michigan to provide $300 million to restart the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, a state lawmaker confirmed Tuesday. State Rep. Pauline Wendzel (R), first reported as one of two sources of the information by the local Herald-Palladium, confirmed the figure in an email Tuesday to the Exchange Monitor. State Rep. Joey Andrews […]

Michigan should work with the U.S. Department of Energy to reopen the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, two state lawmakers opined this week in the Detroit Free Press. “The Palisades Nuclear Power Plant used to produce enough electricity to power over half a million homes in Michigan, yet it currently sits idle,” the two lawmakers, one […]

An environmentalist group on Tuesday sued the operator of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, seeking to keep the facility’s recently bailed-out reactors from operating beyond 2025. If it keeps Diablo Canyon open until at least 2030, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) would violate a 2016 contract with Friends of the Earth which stipulated […]

Holtec Decommissioning International wants the state of Michigan to provide $300 million to restart the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, a state lawmaker confirmed Tuesday. State Rep. Pauline Wendzel (R), first reported as one of two sources of the information by the local Herald-Palladium, confirmed the figure in an email Tuesday to the Exchange Monitor. […]

Holtec Decommissioning International this week pitched the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on restarting the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan via a license amendment request, according to company documents posted online Monday. It was the first time the company, which wants to find a buyer to reopen and operate Palisades if suitable federal subsidies can be […]

Holtec Decommissioning International this week pitched the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on restarting the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan via a license amendment request, according to company documents posted online Monday. It was the first time the company, which wants to find a buyer to reopen and operate Palisades if suitable federal subsidies can be […]

A federal jury convicted a former Ohio lawmaker and an accomplice last week for a massive bribery scheme intended to keep two struggling Ohio reactors financially afloat. Former House speaker Larry Householder, 63, and former Ohio Republican Party chairman Mathew Borges, 50, face potential sentences of up to 20 years in prison. The trial lasted […]

A federal jury convicted a former Ohio lawmaker and an accomplice Thursday for a massive bribery scheme intended to keep two struggling Ohio reactors financially afloat. Former House speaker Larry Householder, 63, and former Ohio Republican Party chairman Mathew Borges, 50, face potential sentences of up to 20 years in prison. The trial lasted seven […]

Even as the Department of Energy this week opened the door for a shuttered Michigan nuclear plant to qualify for its billion-dollar bailout program, the company aiming to restart the facility said it would look for federal funding elsewhere. Holtec International, which owns Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, applied for a DOE loan last week with […]

California’s energy policy and planning agency said Tuesday that the Golden State should take action to keep its last operating nuclear power plant online through the end of the decade, according to a press release. The California Energy Commission’s (CEC) staff analysis of Diablo Canyon Power Plant, published Tuesday, recommended that Sacramento pursue keeping the […]

Two anti-nuclear groups said Tuesday that they would try to use a federal public records law to get the original version of Holtec International’s heavily-redacted plan to restart a shuttered Michigan nuclear power plant. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Tuesday by lawyers for Beyond Nuclear and Don’t […]

Nuclear power plant operators looking to take advantage of a federal bailout scheme may have to wait a bit longer to apply for the program’s second funding round, according to a Department of Energy spokesperson. DOE expects to release “application guidance” for the second round of its civil nuclear credits program in the first quarter […]

  California’s last nuclear power plant must start its federal relicensing process anew, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday, derailing its operator’s plan to put huge chunks of bailout money to quick work via a regulatory shortcut. In 2022, Diablo Canyon Power Plant operator Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) secured more than $2 billion in […]

The Department of Energy cannot sign off on a decommissioning company’s gambit to restart a shuttered Michigan nuclear power plant, a coalition of anti-nuclear groups told the Secretary of Energy in a letter Monday. Holtec International’s proposed bid on DOE’s civil nuclear credits program, aimed at securing federal funding for Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, “goes […]

As the company in charge of California’s last operating nuclear power plant seeks federal approval to operate the facility for an extra five years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is weighing whether to extend the plant’s license to store spent nuclear fuel on site. NRC is considering an application from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) that, […]

Due to the “fits-and-starts” so far with demonstration of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, the Department of Energy plans to restart the facility’s final test run, which the agency now expects to last beyond the previously scheduled 50 days, officials at Idaho National Laboratory said Tuesday. “There really is no such thing as a 50-day […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons remediation contractor at the Los Alamos National Lab will resume normal operations at the lab’s Area G next week, DOE’s local cleanup fed told a citizens advisory board this week. “We are resuming normal operations, processing operations at Area G next week,” Michael Mikolanis, manager of the DOE Environmental Management […]

A Louisiana nuclear plant that shut down as Hurricane Ida battered the state last week will soon resume normal operations, the utility company that owns the site said this week. Entergy Nuclear has “completed all necessary internal readiness reviews and has received recommendations and approvals” from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart Waterford Steam Electric […]