NUCLEAR RESET: Palisades, though delayed, still set to be country's first nuclear power plant restart

COVERT TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- The Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Covert Township, Michigan, is on track to be the first restart of a decommissioned nuclear facility in the United States.

However, ABC57 was told the plant would be up and running by the end of 2025. ABC57's Annie Kate visited the plant in January for an exclusive on-site visit, and to investigate why there has been a delay.

Nick Culp, senior manager of government affairs and communications for Holtec Palisades, escorted the ABC57 crew through the plant's turbine deck, currently covered in scaffolding as workers prep the equipment for restart.

"How rare is it for someone who doesn't work in the building to be able to be in this room and see these turbines?" Annie Kate asked to which Culp replied, "This is really an industry first. So, to see the scale of the work that we're doing really is unprecedented in the history of nuclear power."

In July 2025, Holtec Leaders told ABC57 the plant was on track to be operational by the end of 2025. This came after Holtec received all final approvals for the restart from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ABC57 sat down exclusively with Site Vice President Mike Mlynarek during the January on-site visit to ask about the delay, who stressed just how monumental a task they are undertaking.

"I was told that the plant will be up and operational by the end of 2025 of course, it's now January 2026 so my main question is, what, what happened to push back that timeline, and what is the new timeline?" Annie Kate asked.

"Yeah, so, you know, for us, we set that time frame back in, literally, the fall of 2022, so just as the project was being planned, devised, and as a team, our Holtec team, we decided to stick with that, that target, and it was, it's our early target," Mlynarek said.

ABC57 wasn't able to get a more specific targeted start date at this time.

"Is there now a projected start date? Will it be quarter one, quarter two of this year? Do you have a new date in mind?" Annie Kate asked to which Mlynarek replied, "Yeah, it's, I'll just be honest with you, that is our senior levels of our Holtec organization. They manage that date."

Mlynarek said he cares less about the "when" and more about the job well done.

"One of the things that, again, I think everyone needs to understand is the challenges associated with transitioning this plant from a decommissioned plant to that trajectory, that path to recommission and then back online," he said. "Again, this was that project that could not happen, should not happen, and the barriers we had to get through to make it happen."

Leaders say more work is being done than ever on the plant.

"Everything we do again, we're protecting the plant from the people and protecting the people from the plant," Mlynarek said.

Holtec leaders also say the delay doesn't undermine the history being made.

That history includes hiring back many of Palisades' retired workforce.

"So, we went from roughly 200 employees at the time of shut down back in 2022," Culp said. "We've rehired and rebuilt our team to more than 600 at this point, and then two thirds of that entire team are people who had worked at Palisades previously.

The historic restart is all thanks to a $1.5 billion grant from the Department of Energy under the Biden Administration. However, the current support for nuclear power is proving bipartisan.

"There has been a mandate from the Trump administration that the United States needs to reassert itself as the global leader in nuclear power," Culp said. President Trump’s Department of Energy also awarded Palisades an additional $400 million for the expansion planned at the plant after the restart.

In fact, the Trump Administration wants to see the country's first small modular reactors, or SMRs, by July of this year, and while plans are in the works nationwide to make that happen, leaders at Holtec Palisades still believe it will be the first company to build SMRs with its "Mission 2030" partnership with Hyundai.

"Is Palisades still on track to be the first site to build SMRs and operate them in America?" Annie Kate asked Nick Culp, to which he replied, "Well, there's a number of other companies out there. We are certainly on track to be the first plant ever restarted in the United States, and because of the success of our team, and we're very excited to get to that final milestone, because of their success, you now see other nuclear plants across the country who are restarting. So, it's very exciting to be sort of a pioneer. In that sense, the two SMR units that are planned for here should be the first in the United States, if not the first— one of the very first."

The push for the buildout of nuclear power is in no small part due to the increasing energy demands in the United States.

"We are seeing just more demand for electricity than ever, and there's all this talk about how we're going to power our future to meet these demands. I'm especially thinking about the build out of AI infrastructure," Annie Kate asked Mlynarek. "Why-- obviously, you've been here for over 40 years-- why do you think that nuclear power is a good option as we work to power our future?"

"So, this is really a long game," he replied. "And even the latest reactors that we the United States has deployed, I'll say the economic viability of those reactors is phenomenal, like when you look at those reactors, [they] could potentially be in operation for 100 years. It's a very small environmental footprint. It's a very controlled and manageable resource. I'd say nuclear is special and unique in terms of its power density and the ability, again, to monitor and control it."

Next on the tour, Culp escorted ABC57 to the control room of the plant.

"The operations team, they control the operation of the plant," Culp said. "This is the team that's in charge of everything that goes on here. All other departments basically work to support operations... Right now, behind us are licensed plant operators, engineers and mechanics who are going through the processes and procedures now necessary to bring this room back to life and to put Palisades back online."

All the control room workers, no matter what level of experience, must train for one week every five weeks, Culp said, and this goes for each worker's entire career.

ABC57 was not allowed near the nuclear reactor, located in the "containment building" at Palisades, but got close enough to the security gate. Workers who go near the reactor must wear a dosimeter to monitor their levels of radioactivity. ABC57's Annie Kate asked Culp about a workplace incident from October, where a Palisades contractor fell into a pool of water above the reactor, inside the containment building.

"We've done a very good job, with more than 2000 people here on-site now for over a year and a half, making sure that they're safe," Culp said. "Unfortunately, in this one case, that individual was fine. They sustained some minor fall related injuries but were able to return to work the next day."

Despite not knowing an official start date, Holtec leaders confirmed the plant received nuclear fuel late last year.

"So those fuel assemblies, they have been again, received, inspected, and we have them stored in our spent fuel pool," Mlynarek said.

Once used, every 18 months or so, spent nuclear fuel is stored in canisters on-site. Leaders tell ABC57 all the waste currently contained from the facility's 50-year history could take up less than the 5-yard line on a football field.

It's now the home stretch before the plant is operational once again.

"In fact, the whole core is ready for deployment back to the reactor vessel, where it will do its mission and provide, I'll say, that safe, clean energy for over 800,000 homes," Mlynarek said.

"Big news for us... we moved our reactor vessel head, which weighs 250,000 pounds, we moved that back onto the reactor. We've resealed the system. Now there's no fuel in the reactor yet, and we're going to move into the process of system passivation, which is basically putting a passive protective layer of zinc throughout our primary system, just to ensure that the plant's in good condition to run for a really long time," Culp said. "So, that's the next stage. After we get to that, we'll start doing prep work to take the head off the reactor and reload it with fuel. So, it's very exciting."

There are those who remain anti-nuclear. The groups "Beyond Nuclear" and "Don't Waste Michigan" filed a federal lawsuit as an attempt to stop the restart.

Culp said the suit hasn't halted any work at Palisades and that it's not the reason for the delay. Otherwise, he said they can't comment on ongoing litigation.

These same groups also rang alarm bells after Holtec sent a relief request to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In the request, Holtec reported some welding work doesn't meet certain licensing code standards but is asking the NRC to let them proceed with their alternate workarounds.

Culp said this is all a standard part of the process to make sure the plant is ready not only for restart, but for decades of operations to come. Again, he is unable to comment on the pending requests.

Still, the public was allowed to give input and ask questions at a virtual NRC meeting Monday regarding the relief request. The NRC will publish a summary of that meeting and will review and eventually rule on the pending requests before them.