Nuclear Restarts Show Uneven Path for Subcontractor Work
Reopening a shuttered nuclear plant is proving far messier than flipping a switch, OilPrice.com reports, with Holtec International’s Palisades restart in Michigan running into corrosion, supply-chain snags, and unplanned equipment overhauls.
Market Impact
President Trump’s May 2025 executive order calls for construction to start on 10 new large reactors and for 5 GW of uprates at existing plants by 2030, part of a broader push to revive the US nuclear industrial base. That push includes bringing back reactors that were shut down as permanent closures, including Holtec’s 789-MWe Palisades plant in Michigan (shut in 2022), Constellation Energy’s 835-MWe Crane Clean Energy Center on the Three Mile Island site in Pennsylvania, and NextEra’s 615-MWe Duane Arnold in Iowa.
Holtec originally expected the Palisades recommissioning to take about two years. Instead, inspectors found extensive corrosion in equipment that converts hot radioactive water into high-pressure steam, along with a leaking underground water line and the need for new valves. The turbine had to be dismantled for inspection over several months. “We didn’t take the time to really plan out the whole project before we started doing work,” said Jeff Borah, Palisades’ general manager of plant operations, comparing it to “building a fire truck on your way to the fire.” Holtec president Rick Springman said some systems “you can’t really inspect until you start the project,” but the company still intends to meet a contractual deadline of March 2027 and plans to begin loading fuel as soon as September. By contrast, Constellation’s Three Mile Island reactor was undamaged and the company has operated the facility for years, giving it a head start; Constellation hopes to restart that unit as early as next year.
What It Means for Subcontractors
- Mechanical and E&I subs should expect long, discovery-driven scopes on Palisades-style restarts. Holtec’s steam generator, turbine teardown, valve replacement, and underground water-line repair work shows recommissioning jobs can expand well beyond initial bid scope once crews open up decades-old equipment.
- Civil and mechanical contractors bidding restart work should build contingency into pricing and schedule, since Holtec’s own leadership admits the two-year original estimate for Palisades was wrong and the project is now racing a March 2027 contractual deadline.
- Firms with prior utility relationships have an edge: Constellation’s faster timeline at Three Mile Island stems partly from years of in-house operating knowledge, suggesting subs who previously worked these plants under their original utility owners may be first in line for repeat contracts.
- Track federal funding announcements tied to Trump’s nuclear executive order (10 new reactors and 5 GW of uprates targeted by 2030), since billions in federal dollars flowing to companies like Holtec, Constellation, and NextEra will determine which restart projects move to subcontract packages first.
- Fuel-loading at Palisades is targeted for as soon as September, a milestone worth watching for E&I and instrumentation crews expecting startup-phase testing and commissioning work to follow shortly after.
