Could A Michigan Nuclear Plant Failure Become The Midterms' October Surprise?

      As President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth try to deflate Iran’s nuclear energy industry our nation faces a national security threat at a controversial swing state reactor.

       A failed Department of Energy (DOE) attempt to restart the ailing Palisades nuclear power plant near South Haven, Michigan could become the midterms' October surprise.

      Unlike the Ayatollah’s nuclear project, an opaque Camden, New Jersey company has run into big trouble trying to restart this antique reactor with the full faith and credit of the Trump administration. 

      Holtec International’s Palisades reactor, has become a poster child for the “What Me Worry” folks at what’s left of Trump’s downsized and Doged Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  This clear and present danger should be a target for Congressional dismantling

        The latest disaster here on the Lake Michigan shoreline was triggered August 30 by an unprecedented operational error with potentially grave consequences.  Like many previous mistakes this one suggests that Holtec is incapable of safely running a reactor. 

      This unfortunate event inside the Palisades reactor core appears to have demolished Holtec’s multi-billion dollar federal and state subsidized plan to reopen the long delayed plant this year.

      For much of the past month  the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tried to hide the frightening news that a Holtec team “tilted from its upright position” a dangerously radioactive 1,000 pound nuclear fuel assembly. 

      In plain English Holtec’s euphemistic  press release means a critical part of the reactor is stuck. As a result loading of several hundred new and spent fuel assemblies, which normally takes about a week, is stopped cold.

      At the moment this controversial company says it is “developing equipment for the fuel retrieval and on site storage equipment to return the fuel through  a channel from the reactor to the spent fuel pool.”

      Because this operation is well outside the normal operational realm of nuclear reactors, it’s hard to know how the new problem can be resolved short of abandoning the restart plan. Part of the problem is that Trump’s publicity shy NRC routinely delays disclosure of safety related issues like this one for weeks, even months. In effect this so called watchdog agency answers only to itself. 

      The biggest question Holtec and the NRC refuse to answer is the degree of the unexpected “tilt”.   To date there are no photographs of this misplaced fuel assembly.  The public has no way to know how badly this dangerously radioactive unit is listing.  There is even a possibility that it could have tipped over and being lying under water on the reactor floor.

      All this is happening four years after the money losing plant was closed. Previous owner Entergy, a well regarded nuclear fleet operator,  couldn’t afford long overdue safety upgrades including new steam generators also beyond the means of a previous owner. 

      The plant was sold in 2022 to Holtec which promised “a safe and timely decommissioning” that was “welcome news for the plant community.”

      A week after the deal closed the  company suddenly announced a plan to resurrect Palisades, financed in part with money apparently committed for decommissioning. 

      One of the big challenges for this publicly funded reactor reboot has been a series of surprises contributing to the two year restart delay.              

      The latest "tilted" fuel assembly disaster comes as no surprise to industry experts watching the first ever attempt to restart a reactor set for decommissioning.

      It also makes the plant a target for critics of Trump’s full steam ahead approach to nuclear at the expense of much cheaper and quicker to build renewables like wind, solar and hydro.  Today $16 per watt nuclear power can’t compete with carbon free wind and solar.

      There’s another big problem destined to capture the attention of the media and the public at large in the wake of the August fuel reloading catastrophe. 

      Any attempt to restart this reactor today immediately raises big questions about the possibility of an event that could release radiation downwind of Palisades. Conservative  pro nuclear experts with decades of industry experience worry about a potential loss of control driven accident.

      That possibility is related to other major problems at this reactor. A restart means it would have to operate outside the normal designed in depth safety regulations governing the rest of our nation’s reactor fleet.

      Like the controversial Iranian reactor, Palisades is a mystery being rebuilt outside the realm of public scrutiny. 

      After team Trump made history last year with the first ever Presidential firing of a NRC chairman, the White House has gutted the agency with a series of cutback defying common sense. For example during last year’s lengthy Congressional budget crisis calls to the agency’s shuttered media office went to voicemail with no reply.

      This kind of regulatory impotence echoes the story of another Michigan reactor, Fermi 1, the subject of John G. Fuller’s legendary We Almost Lost Detroit.  This 1966 near meltdown that shut down the dangerous plant for good was hidden from public by the NRC’s predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, for eight years.

      This lack of candor echoes the NRC’s playbook.  Understandably the unfolding Palisades debacle could easily impact the ballots of  some of voters who live in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana. Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Grand Rapids and other cities are all conceivably in harms way. 

      If something goes wrong  communities could be in the path of a radiation release, depending on which way the wind blows.  That news would be impossible for the NRC to hide.

       While the likelihood of this event is beyond the crystal ball of any midterm pollsters one thing is certain:  No one can predict how Trump’s NRC and DOE can escape responsibility.  That blowup would echo the effective national campaign putting the political brakes on a national data center rollout.            

      It’s easy to understand why Trump is determined to restart Palisades along with shuttered reactors in Pennsylvania and Iowa.  He sees this as a quick way to bypass the fifteen to 20 year timeline it takes to build a conventional light water reactor. 

      At the moment Holtec, a nuclear reactor newbie that has never sold a kilowatt of atomic energy, does not have a quick fix for the current Palisades impasse. Every day the reopening is delayed opens the company up to public ridicule.  

      At this point the right thing to do would be to immediately bring in an experienced operator like previous owner Entegy to remedy the dropped fuel assembly.  Instead the inexperienced company is headed back to the drawing board to invent corrective action. Submitting to NRC inspection and review, public comment and hearings could take many worrisome months.

      In the wake of this failure the company has already been forced to "postpone" an investor roadshow aimed at promoting a much needed $900 million initial public offering. This happened September 17, just nine days after the IPO was announced.

      This latest challenge comes not long after Holtec International's President chief nuclear and safety officers all left the company.

      In August, shortly after telling the New York Times, that the long delayed attempt to restart this dangerously obsolete plant is “like building a fire truck on the way to fire” plant manager Jeff Borah also departed.

       A big part of the problem, he explained, was the fact that Holtec “didn’t take the time to really plan out the whole project before we started doing the work."

      Top executives who worked at Palisades for Entergy believe the latest accident could potentially kill the restart, a classic example of corporate socialism.  To date the federal and state tab for loans, subsidies and grants is approaching the $3 billion mark.  

      Under the leadership  of Trump’s Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the DOE has already appropriated $400 million toward the Holtec’s multi-billion dollar plan to build more reactors at the Palisades location. 

      Don’t Waste Michigan’s Kevin Kamps, a Holtec watchdog who has tracked this plant for decades, says Palisades and four other proposed Holtec Michigan reactors would require up to $16 billion in federal and state, grants, loans and subsidies.

       At the moment scientists who have worked at and studied this plant for many years are especially concerned about the reactor’s antiquated steam generator tubing.  A rupture in one of the many thousands of potentially vulnerable tubes would release significant radiation to the atmosphere and could forcing evacuation of residents near the plant. 

      While President Trump’s NRC dithers and takes a “What Me Worry” attitude toward all these challenges, Holtec faces a big financial challenge on this restart.

      Further delay means the company may not be able to generate its sole source of Palisades income, selling electricity, including some power that might go to data centers. As a result Holtec could potentially default on a $1.52 billion federal loan that the company must begin repaying next spring.         

      Keep in mind that Entergy, and to some extent its predecessor Consumers Power (now Consumers Energy), abandoned the plant because neither was in position to invest many hundreds of millions for safety upgrades deferred for decades.                    

      Leading the list is the astonishing fact that unlike every other nuclear plant in America, Palisades has not met NRC fire protection regulations implemented in 1975 after the disastrous Brown’s Ferry reactor blaze. 

      This is not reassuring to people in South Haven who were just victims of a disastrous September 26 plastic plant fire that knocked out power to the entire town and forced a homecoming cancellation.

      Despite the bad news at Palisades, Trump is moving quickly on his nuclear renaissance dream. He doesn’t seem to realize that the Michigan plant could cause reputational damage to the entire nuclear power industry. 

      On top of all this the President is vulnerable for another reason.  Trump has an obvious conflict of interest because his family media company co-owns a  multi-billion dollar nuclear startup. 

      At the moment it’s impossible to speculate on damage done to the reactor, how the latest problem will be fixed, if Palisades can reopen and how long it can survive in the face of a host other safety related issues that could kill the startup.                   

      In the meantime the public safety issue for midwestern communities potentially downwind of a potential Palisades nuclear nightmare remains front and center.

      As team Trump fails to bury the story, told here, it's obvious that the NRC’s lax oversight led directly to the fuel loading fiasco. This opens a much larger question about the downsized NRC team’s ability to regulate 57 nuclear power plants operating 96 American reactors. To save face it’s likely that public pressure could force the NRC to finally reverse course and slow down the previously approved Palisades restart.

      Holtec’s failure to understand the good reasons why both Consumers Power and Entergy walked away from Palisades led to the company’s latest crisis.   The sad history of this plant explains some of the many reasons why a restart looks more and more like a fool’s errand.

       Equally alarming are recent unauthorized and unorthodox welds on Palisades steam generator tubes that do not meet the American Society of Metallurgical Engineers requirements.

       More than 1,400 tube cracks have been plugged or sleeved thanks to these unprecedented NRC waivers.  The company’s expensive expert consultants report that the plant will not be able to run for a normal 18 month operating cycle. Unscheduled shutdowns are also a definite possibility according to experts who have worked at the plant. New cracks could force a shutdown soon after the restart begins.

       Even worse, a tube rupture could release radiation into the atmosphere, an event that could trigger evacuations. Inevitable news coverage would be wall to wall during the midterm election cycle.

      Even if the reactor does eventually restart experts predict that Palisades will, at best, operate for maybe a year before it is forced to shut down.  This is not idle speculation.

      The big problem is Holtec’s naive attempt to restart with obsolete steam generators that should have been replaced decades ago. Buying replacements will take five years or more and cost upwards of half a billion dollars. 

      An inevitable Palisades uproar could be a threat to Trump loyalists like Congressmen Bill Huizenga.  He sees the plant as an economic boon to his West Michigan district. The downside is the risk of a Palisades nuclear accident after it resumes operation.

      Nuclear power experts I have spoken to  say there is a one in 20 chance that reopening this plant could lead to a dangerous radiation release following a tube rupture. That could trigger the Palisades emergency evacuation plan for surrounding communities.

      It is not a stretch to calculate the multi billion dollar damage this could do to the West Michigan business, agriculture, real estate and tourism. Adding to the political controversy is that fact that damage from nuclear power accidents is excluded from property owners' insurance policies. 

      No longer can Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright showcase Palisades as the model gateway to a booming nuclear power industry. This failure to launch the Michigan reactor could undercut faith in other nuclear startups, including  the one Trump's family co-owns. 

      Trump and Hegseth, the same leaders who brought you the war in Iran are now expediting other nuclear power plant startups.  The president Trump has mandated DOE’s Wright to build 10 new nuclear reactors at a record pace with a $17 billion federal loan.

      To speed up the process Trump has issued an executive order that craters traditional nuclear power plant safety regulations. Hegseth, who has no background in atomic energy, is preparing to greenlight nuclear facilities on military property exempt from NRC regulation. 

      Equally troubling is Holtec’s track record with state and federal regulators.  In 2010 this unique company was issued a 60-day disbarment from federal work after it was caught paying $54,000 to a Tennessee Valley Authority employee to maintain or continue its contract.                           Failure to disclose this fact on a subsequent  $260 million New Jersey tax break application forced Holtec to pay a $5 million state fine in 2024 to avoid prosecution.

      Since retaking office in 2025,Trump has done everything possible to promote nuclear power short of going for a dip in the Palisades reactor core, something that happened to an unfortunate Holtec employee last fall. Fortunately she was fished out and decontaminated.

       Despite all these disasters, Trump's NRC will hold itself accountable for mistakes that led to the latest Palisades disaster. Come November that shortsighted decision could have a major impact at the polls, especially in critical midwestern battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

Roger Rapoport has covered Palisades for many publications including The Progressive and The Detroit Free Press.  The Nuclear Reactor Next Door is his podcast on this reactor.  More at rogerrapoport.com