In the nine months since Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced plans for the Palisades Nuclear Plant — the first ever plan to restart a nuclear reactor scheduled for decommissioning — Covert Township (pop. 2510) has become an international celebrity. 

Media worldwide have made this proposed reopening the biggest Michigan nuclear energy story since the near meltdown of the Fermi 1 in 1966, a reactor disaster story hidden by Detroit Edison (now DTE Energy) until the 1975 publication of John G. Fuller’s We Almost Lost Detroit. 

This potential shot in the arm for the tanking nuclear power industry, has inspired plans to restart no less than Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island Reactor Unit 1, the next door neighbor of a reactor that melted down in 1979, as well as a third defunct reactor in Iowa.

While Palisades owner Holtec International promises to have the reactor near South Haven on line in the fall of 2025, a series of unfortunate events suggest that this grand plan, costing taxpayers billions in subsidies, could be doomed.

In fact, there is a possibility that due to problems with the estimated $500 million cost of replacing a seriously damaged steam generators, plus a series of regulatory challenges, Palisades could become a black eye for the rest of the nuclear industry.

It could also be a blow to the Michigan Legislature, which is ponying up $300 million in public money for this dubious enterprise that could wind up costing federal taxpayers more than $7 billion.

“The problem,” says the plant’s former design engineering manager Alan Blind, “is that Secretary Granholm and Governor Whitmer picked the wrong plant for a restart.” 

Blind, a 40 year veteran of the nuclear industry, former vice-president for nuclear at Consolidated Edison and a previous site vice-president at an operating atomic reactor 40 miles south of Palisades, points out that Palisades fails to meet the existing NRC general design criteria. “This plant is not in compliance with dozens of regulations required to safely operate nuclear reactors.” 

According to documents just released in response to Blind’s Freedom of Information Act suit, plant operator Holtec failed in its attempt to secure an experienced nuclear operator to run the plant.

As a result the New Jersey based company, which has never built or operated a nuclear reactor, is now struggling with a host of compliance issues at the NRC.

At the top of the list, says Blind “is the fact that two crucial steam generators for the plant have excessive cracking of the tubes far greater than expected. Contrary to Holtec’s position it is unlikely that the NRC will approve the generators return to service.”

“Replacing the steam generators would take at least two years, possibly longer based on supply chain issues. Making this problem even more complicated is the fact that Holtec needs many months to submit a mandated final safety analysis report. By the time the NRC completes its review this process could easily add a year to the proposed restart timeline.

“Together these two problems indicate that it could take three or more years for Palisades to restart if that ever happens.

“What’s at stake here is that this plant was designed and built prior to all of the NRC safety codes governing every other operating nuclear reactor in the country. Until the plant was shut down in 2022, due to financial and safety issues, operations were grandfathered in. It never met any of the NRC’s codes going back as far as 1971.

“In a petition to the NRC on behalf of Palisades Park residents living adjacent to the plant we have argued that the restarted plant can no longer be grandfathered in and operate under a design basis that no longer exists. In other words it needs to meet modern day codes that apply to all other nuclear plants.

“In a November 22 letter (made public December 23) to Holtec  an NRC license request reviewer rejected the company’s claim that it does not need to update an obsolete 56-year-old safety analysis report. That document produced in 1968 was based on design criteria no longer acceptable to the NRC.

“This letter is a bombshell because it essentially says that the entire basis for the multibillion dollar federal and state government subsidized restart of Palisades is wrong. Letting Holtec, a company that has never operated a nuclear reactor,  restart a plant failing to comply with government safety standards is very controversial.

“Even after Holtec updates the final safety analysis report it probably won’t receive NRC approval for operating the seriously degraded and potentially dangerous steam generators. Their failure or a failure of any other system that doesn’t meet present day codes could cascade into a more serious event.”

As a respected expert who supports the nuclear industry but does not support a Palisades restart, Blind says: 

“A more serious event such as a tornado or a malfunction of a piece of equipment could create a dangerous incident that would require operator intervention. 

“Equally consequential is the failure of the plant to have all the critical backup systems at other nuclear plants meeting NRC standards. There is a reason why two previous owners including fleet operator Entergy, the company I worked for, sold Palisades. The expense of replacing steam generators and other safety challenges was a critical factor. They knew the plant was at the end of its useful life.

“When they take the politicians and the media on tour they show them the shiny turbines and the control room. But they don’t show the vulnerable reactor spaces which document all of our safety concerns.

“Industry history shows that putting a reactor like Palisades in the hands of a company with no previous experience can be very challenging. Combining that with the fact that they are trying to restart a plant with no design safety experience is kind of scary. It’s like putting your 16-year-old daughter in a 1950s car lacking seatbelts.

“That’s why Holtec tried to get an experienced operator to run Palisades. Their failure to do so indicates that veteran nuclear power plant operators were not willing to take on the risk.”

Roger Rapoport’s podcast on the proposed Palisades reactor restart is The Nuclear Reactor Next Door. He is the producer of the new film Old Heart which opens at Detroit’s Redford Theater May 17, 2025. More at rogerrapoport.com.