US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Reviews Incident During Restart Efforts at Michigan's Palisades Reactor

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated on Monday that it is currently reviewing an incident connected to restart activities at the Palisades nuclear reactor located in Covert, Michigan. Viktoria Mitlyng, a spokeswoman for the NRC, confirmed to The National that there was "no radiological release" and that "no workers or the public have been affected." The reactor had previously been decommissioned in 2022, but increasing energy demands for AI data centres have renewed aspirations for its reopening.

Ms Mitlyng explained that a "tipped fuel assembly" incident at the facility did not require formal reporting to the NRC, and the regulatory watchdog was not obligated to disclose it to the public. The National reached out to the NRC following a social media post by Edwin Lyman, a long-time nuclear energy critic who serves as a physicist and the director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists. His post stated that an observer noticed a Reddit post alleging that Holtec dropped a partially burned nuclear fuel assembly during fuelling operations at the Palisades reactor more than two weeks ago, with no public communication from either the company or the NRC.

Ms Mitlyng clarified that the fuel assembly was not dropped, but rather "tipped," and noted that agency inspectors "will continue monitoring the situation." She added that NRC inspectors at Palisades "have been monitoring restart activities, including all fuel‑handling work, from the beginning." Furthermore, she mentioned that Holtec, the owner of the reactor, "has indicated it plans to submit a licence amendment for the retrieval process, which the agency will thoroughly evaluate."

Holtec International, which acquired Palisades in 2022, has previously stated its intention to restart the plant either this year or in early 2027, though it has not yet responded to requests for comment from The National. The company has successfully navigated several regulatory hurdles in recent months. On August 31, Holtec shared images showing nuclear fuel bundles being loaded into the Palisades reactor vessel, highlighting the milestone on the plant's Facebook page. Fuel loading followed more than two years of inspections, maintenance, refurbishment, testing, and equipment upgrades.

Last year, the NRC granted Holtec approval to transition the status of Palisades from decommissioned to eventually operationally licensed. The nuclear facility originally went online in 1971, though its final 15 years of operations faced criticism regarding safety, including a 2012 NRC report warning about the work culture at Palisades, a 2016 incident involving security workers failing to follow fire prevention protocols under previous owner Entergy, and a recent incident where a worker fell off a refuelling bridge into a pool of water without sustaining serious injury.