Restart Closed US Nuclear Plants? Only a Few Would Work

(Bloomberg) -- With electricity demand surging across the US, nuclear power advocates want to restart some of the 13 reactors that closed in the last decade, saying their carbon-free energy is needed more than ever.

But only a handful of retired nuclear plants have a realistic chance of being revived, analysts say — perhaps as few as three. All the others are either damaged or being dismantled, piece by piece. 

“We’re not convinced there are a lot of viable candidates,” said Timothy Fox, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners.

Work is already underway to restart a mothballed reactor in Michigan by late next year. Owners of two other plants, in Iowa and Pennsylvania, are considering following suit. All are responding to a rapid rise in electricity demand — from data centers, electric cars and new factories — that may be just getting started. 

After that very short list, it’s hard to see how most recently retired US plants could be reopened. Some were closed because of damage, such as San Onofre in California or Crystal River, in Florida. Others are already being dismantled, including Vermont Yankee and Indian Point, near New York City. Even if a facility is intact, not all owners have done the costly maintenance needed to keep it in good enough shape to justify bringing it back. 

Any reopening is likely to be expensive. The US Energy Department has conditionally approved $1.5 billion to help restart Michigan’s Palisades nuclear plant, and the state has committed another $300 million. 

“Returning these plants to service really underscores the need for new energy, especially clean energy,” said Adam Stein, director of nuclear energy innovation at the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland, California-based research center. “It depends on how much money you’re willing to spend.”

Just a few years ago, nuclear plants were considered economic dinosaurs. They struggled to compete against cheap natural gas and renewable resources that at times flood the grid with so much electricity that power prices go negative. 

Now, however, US electricity demand is climbing for the first time in a generation. Supporters see nuclear power — available around the clock, with no greenhouse gas emissions — as ideal for running the banks of computers within data centers, whose energy demands can rival those of small cities. 

Reactor owners are carefully watching progress at Palisades, on the shores of Lake Michigan. Holtec International Corp., a nuclear services company better know for decommissioning old plants, acquired the site when it shut down in 2022 and started preparing to tear it apart. 

But the company almost immediately reversed course after the governor and other officials called to keep it running. Holtec now expects the site to go back into service in the second half of 2025.

Chris Gadomski, lead nuclear analyst at BloombergNEF, says only two other plants could potentially go back into service. One is at the site of the country’s worst nuclear accident: Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, owned by Constellation Energy Corp. The other is NextEra Energy Inc.’s Duane Arnold plant on the Iowa prairie. Both companies have said they’re willing to revive the plants, but only under certain conditions. Neither has made any commitments. 

“There would be opportunities and a lot of demand from the market if we were able to do something with Duane Arnold,” said John Ketchum, NextEra’s chief executive officer, in July during an earning call. He would only consider a restart, he said, if it could be done safely and economically. It would be complicated project, because the facility was damaged by a windstorm in 2020.

Local officials say that reviving nuclear plants — with their nonstop, “baseload” power — would help run existing data centers and attract more, providing jobs that would boost their states’ economies. 

“You have to understand how valuable baseload power is to the grid,” Tom Mehaffie, a Republican state representative in Pennsylvania. “If we want to bring in data centers to Pennsylvania, we’re going to need baseload power.”

Mehaffie’s district includes Three Mile Island, where a partial meltdown in 1979 led to the permanent closure of one of its two reactors. The second ran for 45 years without incident, but was shuttered in 2019 because it couldn’t compete economically. 

Mehaffie unsuccessfully pushed for legislation then to help keep the reactor in service, and is doing so again now. While lawmakers debated subsidies this year to revive the plant, the incentives weren’t included in the state budget approved in July. He expects to raise the issue again when the legislature returns from hiatus in September. 

“There’s a lot of talk about the potential reopening of Three Mile Island,” he said. “You can see the movement.”

Constellation, the biggest US nuclear operator, says it’s technically possible to revive the facility. “There are many economic, commercial, operational and regulatory considerations remaining,” Constellation said in a statement. 

Costs may prove to be a significant deterrent, said Fox at ClearView. Palisades is receiving significant backing from both the US and the state, but Duane Arnold and Three Mile Island so far are not. While NextEra and Constellation are both keeping their options open, a restart project would be unlikely without government support, Fox said.

“Keeping the door open is not the same thing as walking through it,” he said. 

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