Energy Department finalizes loan for Michigan nuclear plant revival

The Energy Department on Monday announced it has finalized a $1.5 billion loan to restart a shuttered Michigan nuclear power plant.

The loan guarantee will restart the Holtec Palisades Nuclear Plant in Covert Township, which shut down in 2022 after five decades of operation. The reboot will mark the first for a nuclear reactor after the removal of its fuel.

The Biden administration is also awarding $1.3 billion through the Department of Agriculture’s Empowering Rural America program to two rural electric cooperatives, which will discount electricity passed on to their members through emissions-free sources such as the Holtec plant.

The administration projected that the restarted Palisades plant, which must still go through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing approval process, will provide power until at least 2051 once brought back online. The administration estimated it will create or keep up to 600 local jobs, and the company has signed an agreement with 15 trade unions, according to the department.

“Nuclear power is America’s largest source of carbon-free of electricity, supporting hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs across the country and will play a critical role in tackling the climate crisis and protecting public health and the environment from its impacts,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor, said in a statement. “Under President Biden and Vice President Harris’ leadership, DOE and our partners across the federal government are working around the clock to ensure this vital source of clean electricity—and the vibrant workforce it supports— continues to power our nation for generations to come.”

Nuclear power largely fell out of favor during the Cold War amid anxieties about the potential for accidents, but in recent years policymakers have revisited it as a renewable and emissions-free power source. The announcement comes shortly after the news that the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, the site of a partial meltdown in 1979, will reopen to power Microsoft data centers.