{"id":12672,"date":"2024-09-12T19:46:21","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T19:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=12672"},"modified":"2024-09-12T19:57:57","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T19:57:57","slug":"how-michigan-is-going-nuclear-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=12672","title":{"rendered":"How Michigan is going nuclear again"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/how-michigan-is-going-nuclear-again\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Blue state provides blueprint for purple Wisconsin<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n

America\u2019s energy grids are strained as electricity demand continues to grow exponentially, and zero-emission goals are diminishing so-called \u201cbaseload\u201d generating capacity.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Michigan\u2019s
Palisades Nuclear Generating Station<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The response on the other side of Lake Michigan: a remarkable atomic about-face that may hold lessons for Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in April 2022 announced<\/a> that she supported keeping open<\/a> the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, which was due to close the following month.<\/p>\n

The plant\u2019s operator turned the reactor off shortly thereafter and, by summer of 2022, was planning to tear the plant down<\/a>. The governor\u2019s switch, however, led the plant\u2019s new owner, Holtec Decommissioning International, to begin seeking federal aid to restart the reactor and to find a buyer for the plant\u2019s electricity<\/a> \u2014 a pair of energy wholesale cooperatives.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s change of heart was remarkable, said research analyst Josh Antonini of the Midland, Mich.-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhitmer has advocated for some of the country\u2019s most radical environmental policies, yet even she recognizes the importance of nuclear power,\u201d Antonini said.<\/p>\n

As a step toward reopening the plant, Holtec applied for a federal Civil Nuclear Credit in 2022. The credit was then denied by the U.S. Department of Energy, a federal agency overseen by former two-term Democratic Michigan Governor and current U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fully understood that what we were attempting to do, re-starting a shuttered nuclear plant, would be both a challenge and a first for the nuclear industry,\u201d Holtec spokesman Patrick O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n

But this past March, the Biden Administration approved a $1.5 billion loan<\/a> to recommission Palisades.<\/p>\n

Whitmer \u2014 whose about-face encountered opposition from environmentalists and members of her own Democratic Party \u2014 applauded the move.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce complete, Palisades will become the first successfully restarted nuclear power plant in American history, protecting 600 union jobs at the plant, 1,100 in the community, and access to clean, reliable power for 800,000 homes,\u201d Whitmer said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Michigan Senate Republican Leader Aric Nesbitt celebrated the news, albeit with reservations about Whitmer\u2019s green agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy to see the governor and her peers acknowledging the need to reopen this vital nuclear power plant as we all brace for the predictable shortfalls of the extreme energy agenda forced through the Legislature by the Democrat majority last year,\u201d said Nesbitt in a statement.<\/p>\n

Whitmer seems to have embraced nuclear energy to compensate for the shortfalls of wind and solar energy and her own zero-emission policies and efforts to permanently close the dual five-mile Line 5 pipelines spanning the Lake Michigan floor between Michigan\u2019s Upper and Lower Peninsulas.<\/p>\n

The closed nuclear plant on its own produced about 6.5% of Michigan\u2019s electricity and about 15% of the state\u2019s zero-emissions energy, according to Jason Hayes, director of energy and environmental policy of the Mackinac Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cRestarting Palisades means the return of a reliable and dispatchable source of zero-carbon baseload electricity, capable of helping Michigan meet its clean energy needs year-round without interruption,\u201d said American Nuclear Society CEO Craig Piercy.<\/p>\n

The Palisades recommissioning \u2014 which hasn\u2019t yet happened<\/a> and which still faces opposition during the regulatory process \u2014 is one of the few bright spots in Michigan\u2019s renewable energy future after Whitmer signed legislation earlier this year that mandates 100% alternative energy sources by 2040. The Mackinac Center in 2023 estimated<\/a> the mandates will increase household energy costs by $1,000 per year and require \u201cbillions of taxpayer dollars to various subsidies to accomplish the goal of eliminating traditional energy sources.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMichigan\u2019s energy policy sets the state up for failure,\u201d according to Hayes and Antonini. \u201cThe state\u2019s net-zero mandates and requirements for wind and solar strain reliable resources. Michigan\u2019s goals are some of the most aggressive in the Great Lakes region. Meanwhile, the large utilities are mostly marching in lockstep toward similar objectives. The blackouts the state will suffer are inevitable given these poor decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reopening of Palisades is a good start, however, and the Mackinac Center analysts said Wisconsin might do its residents a favor by following Michigan\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n

According to \u201cShorting the Great Lakes Grid<\/a>,\u201d an analysis by Hayes and Antonini published earlier this year, the Midwestern states\u2019 rush to decarbonize may present dire consequences, and Wisconsin is no exception.<\/p>\n

According to Gov. Tony Evers\u2019s Executive Order 38<\/a>, issued in 2019, the state of Wisconsin has pledged that 100% of all electricity consumed by 2050 will derive from renewables. Unfortunately, most of the eggs in the state\u2019s renewable energy basket rely on unreliable and expensive wind and solar that could spike household electricity bills.<\/p>\n

Nuclear energy receives no mention in Evers\u2019 executive order or in his administration\u2019s latest Clean Energy Plan Progress Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin\u2019s one existing nuclear power plant, Point Beach Nuclear Plant north of Two Rivers, according to the state\u2019s Public Service Commission\u2019s most recent figures<\/a>, supplied only 16% of the state\u2019s electric power.<\/p>\n

That figure is despite Wisconsin in 2016 removing a moratorium on building new nuclear reactors.<\/p>\n

But there are signs of a renewed interest in nuclear power in Wisconsin. In May 2022, about the time Michigan\u2019s Palisades was being turned off, La Crosse-based Dairyland Power Cooperative announced<\/a> its intention to pursue a \u201csmall modular reactor\u201d in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

While no specific plans have been announced, the electric supply co-op\u2019s vice president of generation, Jeremy Browning, told the Badger Institute this month, \u201cWe are absolutely continuing our pursuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the possible suppliers mentioned by Dairyland in 2022 was the Oregon-based NuScale Power Corp., whose design involves small, factory-made reactors. The company\u2019s design won its certification from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cSMRs are no longer an abstract concept,\u201d\u202fthen-Assistant U.S. Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Energy Kathryn Huff said in a statement in January 2023. \u201cThey are real and they are ready for deployment.\u201d<\/p>\n

For some, the concept of any sort of nuclear energy still unfairly conjures up horror stories of Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl, concerns dispelled by the Mackinac Center\u2019s Antonini.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSmall modular reactors are promising developments, but traditional fission plants often get a far worse reputation than is fair,\u201d Antonini wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018There were\u202fno acute radiation injuries or deaths\u202famong the workers or the public due to exposure to radiation resulting from the incident,\u2019 wrote the World Health Organization in its Fukushima report,\u201d Antonini went on. \u201cHad the Fukushima plant\u2019s backup generators not been built in\u202fat-risk, low-lying areas\u202f(which some scientists at the time opposed), there would never have even been a meltdown. Nuclear plants have been providing\u202fFrance\u202fwith a majority of its power for decades \u2014 cleanly, reliably, cheaply, and with no disasters to speak of. The country is the\u202fworld\u2019s largest net exporter of electricity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan-based Bruce Edward Walker has over 40 years of experience in\u00a0literary\u00a0reference, automotive, entertainment, science, and free-market think tank research writing and publishing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Any\u00a0use or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written\u00a0permission.\u00a0To request\u00a0permission\u00a0to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute President Mike Nichols at\u00a0mike@badgerinstitute.org<\/a>\u00a0or 262-389-8239.<\/em><\/p>\n

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