NRC Orders Holtec to Address Fears at Palisades After Operator Failures

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has directed Holtec International to correct a work environment at the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan that it described as "chilled." The agency determined that employees were reluctant to raise safety concerns due to fears of retaliation. This directive follows a series of operational setbacks and poor performance by reactor operators on required licensing tests.

During inspections conducted in July, the NRC found that nine of the 15 reactor operators at the site failed their initial licensing examinations. Only six individuals successfully received their operator licenses. The regulator linked these failures to a safety culture that suppressed open communication among staff members.

The review was triggered by two distinct safety incidents at the facility. In the previous year, a contractor fell into the reactor cavity and ingested water. Medical staff transported the worker off-site, and radiation protection personnel decontaminated the individual. An incident report noted that 300 counts per minute were still detected in the worker's hair following the procedure.

A second incident occurred in August when a bundle of nuclear fuel rods tilted during a refueling operation. This event delayed the plant's restart, which was expected to be the first revival of a closed nuclear reactor in the United States. The NRC's warning specifically addresses the atmosphere left by these events.

Holtec has not operated a nuclear power plant before. The company has secured approximately $2.2 billion in government support for the Palisades project. The initiative has been promoted as a key part of the administration's effort to revive the domestic nuclear industry.

Critics argue that financial and political pressure to expand nuclear capacity in response to rising energy demand from artificial intelligence could increase the likelihood of accidents. They view the current situation at Palisades as an indicator of these risks.

Palisades is one of several shuttered facilities seeking to return to service. The owners of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Duane Arnold in Iowa announced their own restart plans shortly after work began at the Michigan site.