Workers at the Palisades nuclear plant in Covert have cleared another hurdle in the long and complicated march toward a restart.
Holtec International, the company that owns Palisades, announced Wednesday that workers had safely retrieved a nuclear fuel assembly that tipped after being installed in the reactor cavity last month.
“When we encounter a challenge, what matters is how we respond,” said Fadi Diya, Holtec International's Chief Nuclear Officer, in a statement. “Our team approached this recovery with the same commitment to safety, technical rigor, and teamwork that has guided our work throughout the restart.”
Palisades went offline in 2022, with plans to decommission the aging facility that sits on the shore of Lake Michigan, just south of South Haven. But its owner, Holtec International, changed plans, and instead has been working to make Palisades the first decommissioned nuclear plant in U.S. history to resume power operations.
But the restart has not gone entirely smoothly, with unexpected repair and maintenance issues that so far have pushed the timeline back by a year.
One setback came when inspections revealed about 1,400 steam generator tubes had cracks and needed repairs. Last year, a worker fell into a reactor cavity. The worker had only minor injuries and returned to work the next day.
The most recent setback came shortly after workers began to load fuel back into the reactor at Palisades in late August. The work itself was a milestone for the plant, but it quickly went off track when one of the fuel assemblies tipped 30 degrees after being put in place.
Holtec argued to regulators that it couldn’t retrieve the assembly using the machine it normally uses for moving fuel assemblies. The company instead came up with its own method of retrieval, which included a purpose-built canister that would allow workers to safely bring the assembly out of the reactor pool and move it into a pool for spent fuel.
Nearby residents objected to the plan, arguing it was untested and unsafe. Spent fuel assemblies normally remain underwater when being transferred out of the reactor. The water protects against radiation exposure. Palisades argued its method, and its canister, would protect against any radiation leaks.
Regulators approved the plan last week. Holtec announced Wednesday night the process was complete.
“Accomplished safely and error-free, the technically demanding recovery removed a significant obstacle to the historic restart of Palisades,” the company said in a statement.
The company and the NRC are still looking into why the fuel assembly tipped in the first place.
Holtec said, with the tipped assembly removed, workers can now resume the fuel-loading process. The company originally said it planned to begin generating power this time last year. It now is not providing a timeline, saying only, “Palisades will resume operations when all required work is complete and all applicable federal requirements and industry standards are met.”
Holtec does have a contract that includes a commitment to sell power by March 1, 2027.
