New Electricity Needs Set to Spur Unprecedented Nuclear Power Plant Revivals in US and Japan

Idled nuclear power plants in the US are getting a second chance at life amid surging electricity demand. Reactors in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Iowa are among the list of facilities that could be the country’s first nuclear plant to be revived. Re-openings would likely cost billions of dollars, but the promise of newfound power needs for generative AI applications, as well as the automotive, manufacturing, and digital asset sectors, are expected to be quite lucrative for utilities. 

Across the Pacific, Japan is also restarting reactors that were shuttered over a decade ago in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. In particular, the looming restart of its Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) – the largest in the world – is currently crawling toward reality. Nuclear power currently accounts for about 5.5% of the country’s electricity capacity, but will need to rise to 20% – 22% to achieve the government’s current strategic energy plan. 

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MRP has previously covered increasingly a wave of lengthy extensions to the lifespans of numerous nuclear power plants in the US and around the world, as well as prospective conversions of retired coal-fired power plants into advanced reactor facilities. Though more than a dozen US reactors have shut since 2013, US energy companies may be on the verge of reviving several of the plants that were idled.

Earlier this year, the Department of Energy (DoE) provided Holtec International with a $1.5 billion loan to assist with the restart of a 800-megawatt nuclear power plant in Michigan. The Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, which was acquired by Holtec in 2022 after being mothballed in the same year, was originally meant to be decommissioned and deconstructed by the company. Per Reuters, Holtec aims to restart the plant by 2025, eventually deploy two small modular reactor (SMR) units at the site, and has secured long-term commitments from two electric cooperatives to buy power from the plant thus far.

Those are lofty and now well-funded goals, but recent work on nuclear power plants in the US has been notorious for delays and cost overruns. The recently-completed expansion of the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, which represents the construction of the US’s first new reactors since 2016, ended up seven years behind schedule in comparison to the original projections for completion and more than…