The US Department of Energy is lending up to $4.4 billion to restart three closed nuclear plants: Palisades in Michigan, the Crane Clean Energy Center at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and Duane Arnold in Iowa. Together they return 2.25 gigawatts to the grid, enough for roughly two million homes and businesses.
No commercial reactor is known to have returned to power generation after decommissioning began. Palisades would be the first. The plant operated from 1971 to 2022, when owner Entergy exited the wholesale electricity market. Its operating license ran until 2031. It is now the most advanced of the three projects: in August 2026 it loaded fuel, and it aims to generate about 800 MW around March 2027. The loan, managed by Holtec Palisades, comes from the program launched in 2024 under the Biden administration, while the other two stem from the 2025 push championed by Trump.
Crane, formerly Three Mile Island Unit 1, has a 20-year contract with Microsoft and is targeting 2027. Duane Arnold, at 615 MW, grew out of an agreement between NextEra Energy and Google and is expected to restart by early 2029. NextEra CEO John Ketchum has explained that a long-term contract with a major data center operator avoids shifting costs onto Iowa’s residential customers. The plant closed in 2020 after a storm damaged part of its secondary containment.
The three plants shut down before their licenses expired because the electricity they produced cost too much. Staffing and maintenance costs outweighed those of other energy sources. Today the economics have changed. Power demand is growing and grid interconnection delays are holding back data center construction, so operators are willing to pay a higher price for capacity that is available immediately. Estimates for 2030 put data center demand at between 1.2 and 2.3 GW in Michigan, between 0.8 and 3.4 GW in Pennsylvania, and between 1.55 and 2.8 GW in Iowa.
Nuclear engineering expert Todd Allen notes that a restart delivers a large amount of electricity in a relatively short time and costs less than a new large-scale reactor. Operators must recall staff, update their training, verify plant systems and maintenance records, secure fuel, and ask the regulator to reinstate the license. The Department of Energy is also funding upgrades to extract more power from reactors already in operation.
The World Nuclear Association welcomes restarts, but points out that the best outcome remains avoiding early closures in the first place. Other countries, including Canada, Armenia, Belgium, Japan, India and South Korea, have already restarted reactors or are considering doing so. If Palisades meets its March 2027 deadline, the model will have a concrete case to show owners of idled plants.
