Historic NRC Approval to Restart Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Plant

DOE has named South Carolina's Savannah River Site (SRS) as one of four federal locations to host advanced AI-ready data centers alongside new power generation infrastructure. The other sites include Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee and the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky.

Private sector partners will be invited in the coming months to develop cutting-edge AI facilities and energy projects at SRS, with solicitations expected soon and project selections targeted by end of 2025. Construction could begin as early as late 2025, aiming for completion by the end of 2027, with DOE consulting local governments, tribes and the public during planning.

Michigan's Palisades Nuclear Power Plant near South Haven has taken a pivotal step toward resuming operations after its May 2022 shutdown. On July 24, 2025, federal regulators filed public notice to restore the plant's operating license—the first time a U.S. decommissioned nuclear facility is being reactivated.

• Owned by Holtec International, the 800-megawatt reactor halted output due to a control rod drive seal failure.


• Holtec President Kelly Trice hailed the NRC's "no significant hazards" finding as an unprecedented milestone.

With roughly 600 employees and hundreds of contractors already on site, Palisades moves closer to delivering clean, high-output power back to Michigan's grid.

Idaho National Laboratory has joined forces with Amazon Web Services to apply AWS's cloud computing and AI foundation models—via Amazon Bedrock and high-performance GPUs—to the development of next-generation nuclear reactors. The collaboration aims to reduce the cost and time needed to design, license, build and operate advanced nuclear facilities, while laying the groundwork for fully autonomous reactor operations.

• The first joint effort creates a digital twin of a small modular reactor (20–300 MW), enabling near real-time simulations for AI-based control systems.


• INL and AWS executives say the partnership could accelerate U.S. nuclear deployment, improve safety and support clean power applications such as data centers.

This initiative follows a broader industry push—evident in Oak Ridge National Laboratory's recent AI licensing pact—to harness artificial intelligence across the nuclear fuel cycle.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy has announced a significant policy shift in the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) Low or No Emission Grant Program, allowing transit agencies to amend grant proposals from strict zero-emission targets to "low-emission" technology. This move addresses industry concerns that previous rules restricted flexibility and sidelined American energy sources.

Under the new guidelines, recipients can submit a detailed written request to their FTA Regional Office to outline and justify their transition to low-emission solutions. The Department of Transportation will review all timely requests to ensure transit operators can build safe, reliable fleets that align with public demand and budget realities.