By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A Michigan nuclear reactor hoping to be the first in the United States to restart after permanent closure has received about 10% of $1.52 billion in U.S. financing approved during former President Joe Biden’s term, the Energy Department said on Tuesday.
The department’s Loan Programs Office approved disbursement on Tuesday of nearly $47 million of the loan guarantee to the Palisades nuclear plant Holtec Inc hopes to reopen late this year, perhaps as early as October.
It was the second disbursement by the administration of President Donald Trump to Palisades, after one last month, and the third after the conditional loan guarantee was finalized during the Biden administration. More than $151 million of the original loan guarantee has been disbursed.
“With projects like the Palisades Nuclear Plant, the Energy Department is working to ensure America’s nuclear renaissance is just around the corner,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a release.
Many politicians from both major parties support nuclear power as electricity demand rises for the first time in two decades, boosted by artificial intelligence, crypto-currency and electric vehicles.
Power company Entergy closed the 800-megawatt Palisades reactor in Michigan in 2022, after the plant generated electricity for more than 50 years. It shut two weeks ahead of schedule over a glitch with a control rod, despite a $6 billion federal program to save nuclear plants suffering from rising costs.
Holtec still needs permits from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reopen Palisades. Holtec is repairing steam generators at the reactor as the standard procedure for maintaining the units was not followed when the plant went into shutdown.
The LPO has hundreds of billions available in financing but the Trump administration is likely to use the financing more narrowly than the Biden administration and mainly approve loans for nuclear power, development of critical minerals, power transmission and geothermal power, a source said.
The LPO has been hit hard by staffers taking buyouts offered by the Trump administration, with about 100 out of 220 workers leaving.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Mark Porter)
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