Holtec and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will each receive $400 million from the Department of Energy to support early deployments of advanced light-water small modular reactors (SMRs), DOE said Tuesday.
The federal cost-shared funding will help advance early SMR projects in Tennessee and Michigan, DOE said in a press release. The financial support helps further the Donald Trump administration’s goal of seeing commercial SMRs online in the 2030s, according to the release.
TVA is pursuing a GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 at the Clinch River Nuclear site in East Tennessee, near the DOE’s Oak Ridge Site. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is already working on an environmental report on the project.
Holtec Government Services plans to develop a pair of SMR-300 reactors at the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station site in Covert, Michigan. Holtec is restarting the existing Palisades Nuclear Station. Holtec is working with Hyundai Engineering & Construction on the Palisades SMRs.
“President Trump has made clear that America is going to build more energy, not less, and nuclear is central to that mission,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in the release.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) also applauded DOE’s announcement in his Tuesday press release. Fleischmann, the chair of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Committee, established the $800 million federal cost-shared funding grant program in his fiscal 2024 Energy and Water bill.
“There is no denying the reality that America needs more power. The only way that we will meet our future energy demands is through a robust ‘all-of-the-above’ energy policy that puts nuclear power at the forefront,”Fleischmann said. “The road to get to today began when Congress passed my historic Fiscal Year 2024 Energy and Water bill to strengthen our domestic nuclear industry, and I commend TVA, DOE, and the Trump White House for their work in making today’s announcement a reality.”
Beyond Nuclear, a Maryland-based anti-nuclear advocacy group, called the federal investment a bad move.
“At 300 megawatts-electric (MW-e) each, the additional 600 MW-e would nearly double the nuclear megawattage at Palisades, given the unprecedented zombie restart of the 800 MW-e, six decade old reactor there,” said Beyond Nuclear radioactive waste specialist Kevin Kamps in a press release. “The zombie reactor was designed in the mid-1960s, and ground was broken on construction in 1967, with the learn-as-we-go dangerous design and fabrication flaws at the nuclear lemon baked in, still putting us in peril to the present day.”