Donald Trump wants to quadruple America's nuclear power generation by 2050. To accomplish that goal, Trump wants to build 10 large-scale nuclear reactors that will expand our electrical nuclear generating capacity from 100 gigawatts to 400 gigawatts.
Those new nuclear power-generating plants are at least a decade away, even with Trump's efforts to streamline the permitting and construction process. In the meantime, there are 41 nuclear reactors that were decommissioned over the last several decades due to changing economic circumstances. Companies are looking closely to see how many of them could be reopened and at what cost.
So far, three sites are planning to reopen.
1. Palisades (Michigan): This is the only previously shuttered U.S. nuclear plant that has officially received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to shift back to operational status. It is on track to reopen and has secured a conditional $1.52 billion loan from the Department of Energy.
2. Duane Arnold (Iowa): The owner, NextEra Energy, has also filed a request with the NRC to restore operational status.
3. Three Mile Island (Pennsylvania): Renamed Crane Clean Energy Center, the ill-fated plant lost a reactor in the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history in 1979. But the second reactor continued to operate until 2019, when it became uneconomical to operate.
Now, Constellation Energy will receive a $1 billion loan from the Department of Energy to begin reopening the plant.
Joe Dominguez, Constellation Energy Corp. Chief Executive Officer, said in a June interview, “There’s no version of the future of this country that doesn’t rely on these nuclear assets.” Constellation has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft and intends to bring the unit back into operation in 2027.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday that restarting the plant will lower the cost of electricity.
“We want to bring as much addition of reliable electricity onto the grid to stop these price rises,” he said, adding that such moves will help “reshore manufacturing in our country.”
The U.S. has added only three new big reactors since the 1990s. The most recent ones were years delayed and over budget. Years of flat U.S. power demand created a battle for market share, and nuclear plants had a tough time competing against many renewable projects and natural-gas-fired power plants that tapped into a cheap source of fuel from the U.S. shale boom.
Perceptions of nuclear power have evolved after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing energy crunch in Europe that stemmed from sanctions on Russian energy such as natural gas. Countries including France, Japan and the U.K. are also looking to add nuclear power to their national grids.
Wright said Three Mile Island will add around 800 megawatts of power generation to the grid. Constellation has said it would pay about $1.6 billion to restart the plant in 2027.
Palisades Nuclear Plant will be the first decommissioned nuclear plant to return to "operating status in history. It will generate up to 800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 800,000 homes.
Holtec International, the company that will manage the plant, has set a target reopening for late this year. They've already received the nuclear fuel to power the reactors.
"The esprit de corps of our tirelessly toiling worker force, over 1,800 strong boosted by the stout support of federal, state, and local government as well as our industry partners, labor, and the Southwest Michigan community, is a testament to the national consensus and our collective will to harness nuclear energy to meet the galloping demand for power in our country," said Holtec International CEO, Dr. Kris Singh, in a statement.
Nuclear power is coming back with a roar. It appears that the comeback is coming just in the nick of time.
