COVERT TOWNSHIP, Michigan — Restarting the Palisades Nuclear Plant in western Michigan will transform the facility’s neighboring towns, local county officials hope. 

Found just off a rural two-lane highway over 60 miles south of Grand Rapids, the Palisades Nuclear Plant has been closed for nearly three years. Local government and rural development officials recently sat down with the Washington Examiner to explain why they believe reopening the facility would benefit nearby residents through high-paying jobs and infrastructure growth via increased property taxes from the plant itself.

Holtec International, which has owned the plant since purchasing it from the former owner, Entergy, in 2022, is aiming to bring the power plant back online by October of this year. 

Reopening the Palisades Nuclear Plant would deploy roughly 800 megawatts of carbon-free energy to the grid, as Holtec plans to directly sell the energy to utility companies Wolverine Power Cooperative and Hoosier Energy. From there, the electricity produced by the nuclear plant is expected to power around 800,000 homes in Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana, based on the utilities’ service areas. 

As a number of interconnection systems run through southwest Michigan, where the power plant is located, some nearby residents may not directly benefit from that new electricity generation. This likely wouldn’t directly affect their current electricity bills, but they may not receive electricity generated from the plant located practically in their backyard. 

However, those backing the restart efforts have said there are other benefits to consider. 

New jobs 

When Entergy originally shut down the plant in 2022, Van Buren County Administrator John Faul said the community suffered economically and socially.

“We all interact and having high paid jobs, high paid individuals and families leaving, that has that multiple negative effect,” Faul told the Washington Examiner from South Haven, a small town just five miles north of the power plant. 

With the restart effort, Holtec is aiming to fill roughly 600 jobs and hundreds more made up of contractor work in order to conduct necessary maintenance and inspections. As of last week, Holtec spokesman Nick Culp said the company had filled 565 positions, which is over 60% of its intended goal. If restarted, the plant would also employ around 1,000 construction workers every 18 months for routine refueling and maintenance. 

However, some within the community who live just miles away from the plant are questioning whether nearby residents will fill those jobs, as opposed to workers from out of state.

“Yes, it’s going to boost the economy as far as businesses,” Covert Township resident Geoffrey Rose told the Washington Examiner during a meeting with petitioners against the restart. “But most of the people that are employed there are from out of state because they specialize in their different fields.”

“So it’s not really bringing any employment to Covert,” he added. “It’s not really bringing any employment to people in Van Buren [county] unless they specialize in these fields that are related to nuclear plants.” 

Zach Morris, executive director of the economic and community development organization Market One, which has been working with Van Buren County in trying to restart the facility, acknowledged these concerns during an interview with the Washington Examiner. He indicated, though, that prioritizing talent is vital for starting up any nuclear power plant. 

Morris noted that if the Palisades Nuclear Plant reopens, it would also allow the county to develop programs to build and grow local talent over time. However, in the meantime, Morris said officials don’t mind focusing on bringing in new talent to the region, saying it’s “not a big deal.” 

Housing development 

A reopening of the plant would attract hundreds of new workers from outside the region, raising the question of where they would live.

As of mid-January, Morris told the Washington Examiner that the county was roughly 1,300 units of housing short of what is needed. He explained that in the coming months, his team plans to work on developing sites to build the necessary housing. 

The development will take time and likely will be nowhere near being completed by October, though. Morris explained that the county is working on a five-year timeline for any economic and community development projects. In the meantime, many workers will be forced to live further away from the plant, committing to commutes as long as an hour, depending on the weather and road conditions. 

Still, Morris said the county isn’t worried about the lack of housing as a deterrent.

“We find people drive up to 45 minutes for a good job,” he said. 

Taxing the facility

For Van Buren County officials, the expected benefits brought on by the restart of the plant don’t stop there. Faul, who works alongside the Board of Commissioners, has been reviewing how increased property taxes from the nuclear facility can benefit the region. 

“As that rises back up, then that gives us an opportunity to capture the taxable increased value,” Faul said of the facility. “We’re contemplating parking some of that money strategically for our capital improvement plants. We might need a new courthouse in the future, so rather than going to the citizens and having a bond millage passed, we’ll be able to afford it in-house.” 

The county administrator insisted that increased funds from the plant could also then be used in Covert Township itself for roads, the school system, public safety, and more. 

Some local residents worry that the promised economic benefits could lead officials to rush the effort to restart the plant, compromising safety.

Rose’s wife, Barbara, a former supervisor and current trustee for Covert Township, told the Washington Examiner that she is worried the county may be more focused on those tax benefits from the restart rather than taking more time to ensure the best possible safety standards.

“The plant is important if it’s opened up safely,” she said. “When you look at the taxes, everybody is agreeing to open up the plant. Are they agreeing for the safety issue or are they agreeing for the taxes?” 

Rose agreed, noting that while the taxes may come back to help the community, there needs to be a greater emphasis on safety. 

“This looks like a quick, short fix to make some money, so Holtec, come in here, make some money real quick [and] get on now, and go to the next project,” he said. 

New nuclear generation 

For Holtec, rural development wouldn’t just be limited to the single 800-megawatt reactor. As the company looks to reopen the facility, it is also seeking approval to construct multiple small modular reactors on the same property. 

As of mid-January, Culp told the Washington Examiner that Holtec had completed collecting core samples from the area where they would like to construct the small nuclear reactors. 

Compared to larger nuclear facilities, SMRs traditionally have a smaller physical footprint, allowing the reactors to be built closer to local grids. The small facilities also historically take less time to build, allowing the reactors to come online and supply energy sooner. Typically, these reactors generate upward of 300 megawatts of power. At the moment, no SMRs are operational in the United States, and only three are operational in the world. 

“When we look to the future, it’s not just keeping businesses and homes’ lights on. It’s about meeting the demands: AI and storage centers, manufacturing, population of electric vehicles,” Culp said. “It’s just going to place an increased burden into the end of our grid, and we need to see more on the supply side come on board.” 

Holtec is hoping to construct two SMRs at Palisades adjacent to the plant, on the side of the property facing the 400-acre Van Buren State Park. While the reactors likely would not be in operation until the 2030s, nearby residents are worried about their own health and safety. 

“I’m a little upset that they’re going to be creating more waste to store on site here,” Bruce Davis told the Washington Examiner from his kitchen that sits less than half a mile from the Palisades Nuclear Plant.

Davis and his wife, Karen Davis, who grew up visiting Covert Township her whole life, retired in the area when they learned it was first going to be decommissioned. 

They had long been wary of living so close to an operational plant, as Karen Davis and two other family members were diagnosed with thyroid cancer in the early 2000s. She told the Washington Examiner that she is worried about exposure for her grandchildren, who often visit their home.

“Then potentially creating four times as much waste because of these SMRS? It’s like, why do we want this all in our backyard?” Karen Davis said. 

Karen Davis is petitioning against the restart of the plant along with Alan Blind, a longtime nuclear engineer who worked in the industry for 40 years before retiring while working at the Palisades Nuclear Plant in 2012. The Davises and Blind emphasized that they are not anti-nuclear energy but are rather petitioning against the speed at which Holtec is seeking to restart the plant or bring a new generation online. 

“I’m not against the technology, but I’m a realist that I don’t know in the end whether there’s the political will,” Blind said. “And that will all boil down to ‘not in my backyard.’”

If Holtec fails to receive final approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this summer, either related to the petition or delays in repairs to damaged steam generator tubes, county officials aren’t too worried. 

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“We survived the initial closure of it, and we would again. I think we’re resilient that way,” Morris told the Washington Examiner, adding that more power is needed to keep up with electrification, data center growth, and manufacturing. 

“There absolutely has to be something,” he continued. “We open it up, we have to expand SMRs. That is, unless we decide that we’re going to do something differently with technology, that’s non-negotiable.”