An Open Letter to the US Congress on the Current Crisis at Michigan’s Palisades Atomic Reactor
I write to you out of grave concern after trying all of the traditional regulatory mechanisms to prevent a serious radiation release at the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan.
The NuclearRegulatory Commission has either ignored or rebuffed my safety concerns as an expert witness for the last three years.
I have 55 years of nuclear experience and was a former nuclear industry Senior Vice President with two nuclear engineering degrees, a reactor operator’s license, a nuclear patent and three peer-reviewed papers about the spread of radiation after nuclear accidents.
Previously I have worked with Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Patrick Leahy, Senator Jim Jeffords, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Peter Welsh on nuclear matters around the country. As an expert, just last month my client won an $80 million dollar settlement against a uranium hexafluoride facility in Metropolis Illinois. In 2025, another client of mine won a seven figure settlement against a nuclear plant in Arkansas.
In 2022, an experienced nuclear plant operator, Entergy, made the economic decision to permanently close the Palisades nuclear plant because it was not competitive against renewable power when its power purchase subsidy with the State of Michigan had expired. Entergy sold the plant to a demolition contractor, Holtec, who had never designed or constructed or operated a nuclear power plant but was experienced in selling the carcasses for scrap.
Shortly after acquiring Palisades, Holtec reversed course and decided to “resurrect” Palisades. It received Federal and State grants and loan guarantees totaling at least $2 Billion to attempt this “reincarnation”. [Both resurrection and reincarnation are terms used by Holtec to describe in Biblical terms what it is attempting!]
Even after this infusion of funds, the Palisades plant will not be cost competitive and will receive further subsidies in the event it ever restarts. After more than four years of dormancy,
Palisades claims it is now almost ready to restart and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a willing accomplice to pave the way.
I disagree. I have literally written hundreds of pages of technical analyses to the Palisades Restart Panel, the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, and the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board expressing my concerns and have been consistently been rebuffed.
I am sure you are aware of the political pressures being placed on the NRC, including terminating two Commissioners and departures of 500 NRC staff since January 2025. “Damn the Torpedoes. Full Speed Ahead” seems to be the NRCs new motto to expedite the restart of Palisades and other reactors as well as license dozens of new small modular designs.
Simply put, restarting the 55 year old Palisades reactor is unsafe.
Holtec is a rookie with no nuclear operating experience and has been entrusted with an incredibly complex, never before attempted undertaking. Their own Vice President was quoted in the New York Times as stating that this attempt “… was like building a fire engine on the way to the fire.”
The problems Holtec encountered were foreseeable and indeed foreseen by me in my expert reports to the NRC. Between 2022 and 2024, Holtec did not monitor the water chemistry within the Palisades reactor. Neither Ph controls nor oxygen scavenging met Electric Power Research Institute allowable standards, which resulted in 1,200 tubes in the steam generators developing cracks and eight “safe-end” welds in the nuclear reactor to crack as well. Then Holtec discovered the extent of the damage and inserted 8/10ths of a mile of sleaves over the cracks which it claims will allow safe operation for 18 months.
At the same time that Holtec was repairing the 1,200 cracked tubes, an employee fell into the nuclear fuel pool and another was found pole dancing during lunch breaks. And since September 1 of 2026, Holtec employees dropped a nuclear fuel assembly weighing 1,000 pounds into the nuclear reactor. The assembly is lying at a 60 degree angle across the nuclear core and is permanently bent. And nine out of fifteen reactor operators failed the proficiency exam. And the NRC has identified that a majority of staff in the Purchasing and Nuclear Quality Assurance Departments are afraid of retribution from plant management if they bring up safety concerns!
This NRC “chilled work environment” determination is only the third time in the last decade where the NRC has raised this concern. If Palisades is allowed to restart, the consequences are likely to be severe. My experience shows that the exponential failure of one or more steam generator tubes is inevitable in the first 18 months of operation. Holtec’s own contractor, Framatome, has stated that exponential failure is likely before the next refueling outage.
In the event of a steam generator tube failure, the Palisades design uses “atmospheric dump valves” to vent this radioactive steam directly out of the plant into the environment. An evacuation out to at least ten miles would be necessary.
I think it is obvious that my concerns are appropriate but I have been consistently been rebuffed by the NRC which seems to view its role as an advocate for the nuclear industry and not as a protector of the general public.
And so I respectfully ask you to intervene to stop this mad dash. I will gladly provide your staffs with the reports I have written should you be interested.
Sincerely,
Arnie Gundersen, Nuclear Engineer
Dawson, Minnesota
LINKS to Gundersen Publications:
https://www.dontwastemichigan.org/SMNR/AGreply2NRC.pdf
https://www.climateandcapitalmedia.com/regulating-the-regulators-the-
extraordinary-influence-of-the-nuclear-power-industry-on-the-nuclear-regulatory-
commission/
https://beyondnuclear.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/9_10_25-ACRS-letter-
Final-9_10_25-ACRS-letter.pdf
https://beyondnuclear.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/12-4-25-Arnie-Gundersen-
ACRS-Comments-FINAL.pdf
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/04/a-nuclear-power-parable/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/05/28/nuclear-power-and-other-peoples-
money/