Plans for unprecedented United States nuclear energy plant restarts, including one likely to occur by the end of 2025, are stirring debate over whether efforts to revive other shuttered sites are worth pursuing.
The answer to that question could help determine how needed additions to the nation’s electrical generating capacity take shape in coming years and, perhaps, even the role designers and builders will get to play in that critical mission.
For now, all systems are go on what’s being termed a technical first: a planned restart of a decommissioned nuclear power facility, the 800MW Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Van Buren County, Mich. A select few other nuclear plants have been restarted but not technically decommissioned, which entails fuel removal and adherence to a host of other lengthy and costly processes.
In mid-March, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) disbursed another tranche — $56.8 million — of $1.52 billion in federal loan guarantees made to plant owner Holtec International in 2024 to help get the plant, which ceased operations in 2022, back into service. Jupiter, Fla.-based Holtec says the funds, which follow $38 million released in January, keep it on track to continue extensive rehabilitation and re-commissioning work leading to a certified safe and environmentally responsible restart of the reactor and power generation and distribution later this year.
Another similar restart project is moving ahead in Pennsylvania. Baltimore-based Constellation Energy announced plans in September 2024 to bring the infamous Three Mile Island (TMI) facility in Dauphin County back online after it finally shut down in 2019. Decommissioning was in progress at TMI until its owner, Constellation Energy, contracted with Microsoft to supply its datacenters with power from TMI, renamed Crane Energy Center, for a 20-year period. Work at the site, funded in part by Inflation Reduction Act dollars supporting nuclear power development, is proceeding with the aim of starting to generate power from the 835MW complex by 2028.
A third restoration project was announced in January. NextEra Energy, Juno Beach, Fla., confirmed that it filed a request with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reverse a plan underway to decommission the 615MW Duane Arnold Energy Center near Palo, Iowa. That facility had been on track to begin shut down in 2020 after a primary customer ended a power purchase agreement. It stopped operating prematurely in 2020 after a powerful storm damaged its cooling towers. NextEra’s preliminary timetable has the facility producing nuclear power again by 2028.
The envisioned reopening of these projects and the possibility of other mothballed ones following suit, alongside a movement to develop scaled-down nuclear reactors that could be cheaper to site and operate contributes to the narrative of a possible nuclear power renaissance. With fossil fuel-based power generation out of favor (though the tables may be turning with a new Trump administration), and lingering questions about the ability of renewable sources to fulfill their promise amidst stiff administration pushback nuclear could be on the verge of a revival. Public opinion, which could be key, seems to be shifting alongside consumer worries over mounting energy costs, service interruptions, and the consequences of insatiable energy demand: a recent Pew Research Center survey found 56% of Americans favoring development of nuclear energy, up from 43% four years ago.
Yet nuclear power likely comes with a steep price tag on multiple levels. In dollars alone, its further development could encounter obstacles, especially in the realm of restarting plants that have been taken out of service or keeping operating ones that are aging functional and safe. A serious barrier to restarting older facilities is the degradation of infrastructure built have a 40-year or so lifespan that has already been surpassed for many. For that reason and many others related to costs that might far exceed development of new power sources utilizing nuclear or other fuel types, an MIT professor of nuclear science and engineering was quoted in an AFP news story saying, "I don't think there are that many mothballed nuclear plants out there that you'll be able to restart.” A 2022 Manhattan Institute article explored the topic in depth, concluding it’s a “daunting prospect” to overcome technical, political, regulatory and business obstacles.
The three restart projects now in progress will ultimately test that theory one way or another. And their success or failure may help determine whether some share of the nation’s future power-generating needs will be met by more ground-up construction or qualitatively different rehabilitation and restoration work.
The latter won’t necessarily spell lost opportunity for a highly specialized corner of the design and construction industry: Tens of billions would be spent bringing reactors back to life and keeping them in service, employing designers, engineers, builders, and craft workers. Already, for instance, unionized electrical workers are among the many workers now toiling to bring the Palisades facility back to life, a fact touted by IBEW. In a December 2024 post, the union says members have been performing maintenance ahead of the reactor rebuild and hundreds are expected to remain on site in various roles after reopening.
“This is a solid five to eight years of work in an industry that’s innovating and decarbonizing,” said Sixth District International Vice President Michael Clemmons. “This means hundreds of IBEW construction jobs.”
