The Trump administration aims to expand U.S. nuclear capacity through new reactors, power uprates, and the return of previously shuttered plants. Holtec’s Palisades restart has encountered corrosion, equipment repairs, supply-chain problems, and other unexpected challenges that illustrate the difficulty of reviving an aging reactor.
In the United States, President Trump aims to restart operations at the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan, as well as the Constellation Energy Crane Clean Energy Center on the Three Mile Island site in Pennsylvania. This supports Trump’s goal for a U.S. nuclear renaissance.
In May 2025, Trump published an executive order entitled “Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base,” outlining plans to start construction of 10 new large reactors and add 5 GW of power to existing nuclear reactors by 2030. However, restarting disused reactors is not as simple as just turning them back on, as rigorous safety standards must be considered.
Holtec plans to begin loading fuel into the reactor as soon as September, but the company has faced numerous challenges that were predictable, yet Holtec had never operated a nuclear plant before.
