Two shuttered nuclear power plants, one in Michigan and one in Pennsylvania, are attempting something no U.S. commercial reactor has done before: restart after entering decommissioning. Holtec International’s Palisades plant is targeting a return to service in 2026, backed by a federal loan guarantee of up to $1.52 billion and six rounds of disbursements already approved. Constellation Energy’s former Three Mile Island Unit 1, now officially called the Christopher M. Crane Clean Energy Center, is on a parallel track aimed at 2027, with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission accepting program submissions for review and standing up a dedicated restart panel. The two projects are testing whether federal financing and regulatory machinery can move fast enough to bring offline reactors back to the grid at a time of surging electricity demand.
Why the Palisades and Crane Center restarts carry national weight
No U.S. commercial nuclear reactor has ever returned to operation after its owner began decommissioning. Both Palisades and the Crane Center are attempting exactly that, which means every technical review, permit decision, and financing milestone sets a precedent for any future restart effort. The Department of Energy has described Palisades as America’s first restart of a commercial nuclear reactor in decommissioning. If either plant fails to meet its target date, the template collapses, and the next owner considering a restart will face even steeper skepticism from regulators and investors.
The core tension between the two projects is structural, not just chronological. Palisades benefits from a federal financing mechanism that imposes enforceable milestones on Holtec as each loan tranche is released. Those disbursement conditions effectively compress the window for completing NRC technical reviews, because the money flows only when engineering and safety benchmarks are met. The Crane Center, by contrast, must clear both NRC licensing requirements and a separate layer of Pennsylvania state permits, including water-quality reviews managed by the state Department of Environmental Protection. That dual-track approval process introduces scheduling risk that federal loan conditions do not face.
Federal dollars and NRC panels driving Palisades and Crane timelines
The DOE’s sixth loan disbursement to Holtec, approved under a guarantee that reached financial close at up to $1.52 billion, is the clearest signal that federal officials view the Palisades restart as on schedule. Each disbursement requires Holtec to demonstrate progress on physical plant work and regulatory submissions, creating a feedback loop between spending authority and licensing progress. The DOE also issued a Record of Decision under its National Environmental Policy Act review, formally clearing the path for continued federal financial assistance to the project.
That environmental review culminated in a document identifying no additional impacts that would block further federal support. In the Record of Decision, DOE concluded that the restart could proceed with mitigation measures already embedded in the project design and existing regulatory frameworks. This determination matters beyond Palisades, because it lays out how DOE may treat future restart proposals under NEPA when a plant has already undergone decades of environmental oversight.
On the NRC side, the agency’s reactor information page for Palisades documents a running chronology of restart-related licensing actions, including meetings with Holtec on technical issues such as GSI-191, a long-standing generic safety matter related to emergency cooling system performance. Resolution of that issue is one of the hard technical gates Holtec must pass before the NRC will authorize fuel loading and power ascension. The same docket tracks changes to the plant’s licensing basis, security planning, and operator training, all of which must be revalidated after several years offline.
The Crane Center’s regulatory pathway looks different in structure but not in ambition. The NRC renamed the unit from Three Mile Island Unit 1 and now maintains a dedicated “Potential Restart” section on its reactor information page. Constellation submitted program documents that the NRC accepted for review, and the agency created the Crane Restart Panel to coordinate licensing actions, exemptions, and technical evaluations. That panel, documented in NRC records, signals that the regulator is treating this restart as a formal, organized review program rather than a routine license amendment. It also creates a single point of accountability inside the agency for schedule, scope, and communication with the company.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection adds a layer that Palisades does not face. The state agency maintains a permitting overview page for the Crane Center that outlines water-quality certification requirements and links to specific permit applications for cooling water intake structures, thermal discharges, and related impacts on the Susquehanna River basin. Those state reviews run on their own timeline, independent of NRC decisions, and any delay in state approvals could push the 2027 target even if federal licensing stays on track. Constellation must therefore manage two critical paths in parallel: one in Rockville, Maryland, and another in Harrisburg.
Unresolved technical and permitting questions for both reactors
Neither project has cleared every regulatory gate. For Palisades, the NRC’s public docket contains meeting summaries and technical correspondence on GSI-191, but final safety evaluation reports have not appeared in the agency’s ADAMS document system. Without those evaluations, the precise date when the NRC will authorize restart operations remains uncertain, even as DOE disbursements continue. Holtec also needs NRC approval for updated aging-management programs, given that components originally licensed for a 60-year life will be operating beyond their previously assumed duty cycles once the plant returns.
Another open question is how the NRC will treat any design or equipment changes Holtec has made during the decommissioning phase. Some systems were mothballed or repurposed when the plant shut down, and reversing those changes requires detailed engineering justifications. The agency must ensure that safety-related equipment still meets original design specifications or that any deviations are fully analyzed and documented. That process can trigger supplemental requests for information, extending review timelines even when the core restart concept has already been accepted.
For the Crane Center, the NRC has accepted Constellation’s submissions but has not published a detailed schedule for completing its technical review. The Pennsylvania DEP’s permitting page lists required applications but does not include publicly posted technical review drafts or records of public comment periods. Grid interconnection details, including the plant’s position in PJM’s transmission queue, have been referenced in outside reporting but do not appear in DOE or NRC primary dockets. Constellation has indicated it accelerated its schedule to align with regional capacity needs, though the specific interconnection studies remain outside the public record and could still affect the timing of any commercial operation date.
Both projects must also navigate public engagement. NRC processes include opportunities for local stakeholders to request hearings or submit comments on license amendments and environmental findings. State-level permits at the Crane Center similarly invite input from nearby communities and environmental groups. While neither restart has yet encountered a formal adjudicatory challenge that would halt progress, the possibility of litigation or contested case proceedings remains a background risk that investors and planners cannot ignore.
What’s at stake for the grid and future nuclear policy
The practical question for electricity consumers is whether these restarts will deliver firm, carbon-free capacity in time to meet rising demand from data centers, electrified transport, and industrial loads. If Palisades returns to service in 2026 and the Crane Center follows in 2027, they will offer a proof of concept that existing nuclear assets can be revived more quickly than new reactors can be built. That outcome would strengthen the case for keeping other at-risk units in a condition that preserves restart optionality rather than pushing immediately into irreversible decommissioning.
Conversely, if regulatory delays, cost overruns, or technical surprises push the projects well past their target dates, policymakers may conclude that restarts are too uncertain to anchor resource-planning strategies. In that scenario, utilities and grid operators could double down on new-build options, including small modular reactors, or lean more heavily on gas and renewables to cover capacity shortfalls. Either path would carry its own cost, reliability, and emissions trade-offs.
For now, Palisades and the Crane Center are functioning as real-time experiments in how federal financing tools, NRC oversight, and state permitting regimes interact when a retired nuclear plant gets a second chance. Their success or failure will shape not only regional power markets in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, but also the national debate over whether the U.S. nuclear fleet is a one-way journey from operation to dismantlement-or a more flexible asset base that can be mothballed and revived as energy needs evolve.
More from Morning Overview
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
