News from Don’t Waste Michigan
For Immediate Release
REFUELING SNAFU REVEALED AT PALISADES ATOMIC REACTOR RISKS WORKER AND PUBLIC SAFETY
HOLTEC’S LAST MINUTE CANCELLATION OF BILLION DOLLAR INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING CONNECTED TO INCIDENT, CRITICS ALLEGE
COVERT TOWNSHIP, VAN BUREN COUNTY, MICHIGAN and ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, September 23, 2026—On September 21, nearly three weeks after bungling a thousand-pound, highly radioactive, irradiated nuclear fuel assembly loading operation in the atomic reactor core, Holtec finally acknowledged the incident, its latest in a long list of safety-significant mistakes. It has further delayed the unprecedented, highly controversial restart of the long closed Palisades nuclear power plant on the Lake Michigan shore in southwest Michigan. Neither Holtec nor the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC, headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, near Washington, D.C.) has yet indicated whether the nuclear fuel assembly, or other parts of the reactor core, were damaged, how the stuck assembly will be retrieved, nor how long it will take for fueling to recommence, and reactor operation — already more than two years behind Holtec’s initial schedule — to restart.
On September 21, 2026, Holtec International published a press release that reported an incident during nuclear fuel loading at Palisades.
Palisades entered Mode 6 (Refueling) and began loading fuel into the reactor vessel on August 30, 2026. During fuel-loading activities, one fuel assembly tilted from its upright position after it had been placed, and the fuel-handling machine grapple had been disengaged. Plant personnel responded promptly in accordance with established procedures, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was notified. Plant personnel evaluated the incident and determined that it did not trigger the safety reporting requirements under NRC regulations. Fuel loading remains paused while Holtec addresses the affected fuel assembly.
Consistent with the plant’s nuclear quality assurance program, a root cause evaluation has been initiated to determine the cause of the event and identify any resulting corrective actions. In parallel, Holtec’s corporate engineering division has devised and is developing equipment for the fuel retrieval and on-site storage equipment to return the fuel to the spent fuel pool. Palisades is also preparing a License Amendment Request (LAR) for submission to the NRC related to the proposed methodology to retrieve the assembly.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Monday that it is reviewing an incident related to restarting work at the Palisades nuclear reactor in Covert, Michigan…
The National contacted the NRC after a social media post from long-time nuclear energy critic Edwin Lyman, a physicist and the director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
"An eagle-eyed observer brought to my attention a post on Reddit alleging that Holtec dropped a partially burned nuclear fuel assembly during its fuelling of the Palisades reactor in Michigan more than two weeks ago, yet nothing but silence from either the company or NRC," his (September 20, 2026) post read.
(The National’s article can be emailed by Kevin Kamps to reporters upon request.)
“It seems that both Holtec and NRC attempted to cover up this embarrassing and critical safety-related incident, but Dr. Lyman’s social media post, and The National’s coverage, forced Holtec’s hand into hastily issuing a press release, attempting to downplay the incident after the news article’s publication,” said Kevin Kamps, executive director of Don’t Waste Michigan in Kalamazoo, Michigan, 35 miles downwind of Palisades. Don’t Waste Michigan is the state-wide anti-nuclear coalition founded in the mid-1980s. Kamps has watch-dogged Palisades since 1992.
“As a former senior vice president in the nuclear power industry, one of my divisions built both nuclear fuel racks and nuclear transfer machines, so this issue is in my wheelhouse. It’s yet another rookie SNAFU by Holtec. They have had four years to practice and yet could not get this simple maneuver right. Running a nuclear plant is one thousand times harder than putting the fuel in correctly. How can they be trusted to run a car when they can’t even put gas in the tank?,” said Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with 55 years of relevant experience.
For a dozen years, Gundersen has served as an expert witness for the environmental coalition opposed to Palisades’ continued operation under multiple nuclear industry corporate owners.
Relatedly, on September 17th, Holtec pulled their September 8th Initial Public Offering (IPO) which had been in the works for years. Holtec claimed valuation of $10.2 billion, and was offering 50 million shares at $15-$18 each, hoping to raise up to $900 million in private investment, in order to build out their ever morphing 'Small Modular Reactors'.
“It is not a coincidence that Holtec's IPO withdrawal, years in the planning, could not go forward with pending bad news of a major refueling SNAFU at the end of August,” stated Michael Keegan, chair of Don't Waste Michigan in Monroe, Michigan. Keegan has scrutinized Palisades documents for more than four decades.
"To date, the NRC has not issued a Confirmatory Action Letter (CAL), which is clearly indicated," Keegan added.
"Running 'Amateur Hour' while loading radioactive fuel rods seems like poor business practice," noted David Kraft, director of the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS). "But the NRC's response -- 'The tipped (not dropped) fuel assembly did not meet reporting requirements to the NRC. The incident remains under review.' -- is equally worrisome. After three weeks of 'review,' if NRC can't determine the safety and condition of the potentially damaged assembly, what other potentially threatening issues might be going on at Palisades that are not 'meeting reporting requirements'?", Kraft asks. "We hope the public will not find out 'by accident.'"
“The safety-significance of this ongoing incident is highlighted by the fact that Holtec itself has admitted it is preparing a License Amendment Request (LAR) just to retrieve the wedged fuel assembly, and return it to the indoor wet storage pool for highly radioactive waste,” said attorney Terry Lodge, Toledo, Ohio-based co-counsel for Don’t Waste Michigan and Michigan Safe Energy Future, two of multiple organizations that have long resisted Palisades’ continued operation.
“An LAR presents an opportunity to petition to intervene, and request a hearing, to present adversarial contentions in an NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board proceeding,” said Wally Taylor, Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based co-counsel for the environmental coalition. “We are considering our options, given this latest development,” Taylor added.
Researching related Reddit posts also begs the question, is the wedged fuel assembly merely “tipped,” as NRC Region 3 Office of Public Affairs spokeswoman Victoria Mitlyng was quoted as saying in The National article? A Reddit post about the incident alleged that the fuel assembly, which is supposed to be in a vertical orientation in the reactor core, was dropped, resulting in a horizontal disorientation.
Environmental coalition researchers reported on September 22, 2026 that they “got on Reddit and if the comments from 18 days ago (September 4, 2026; see italicized text, below) are accurate (see below) this looks like a pretty serious problem...I tried just screen-grabbing, but that didn't work so here's the comments without the fluff around them. Someone with a handle ossetepolv seems to have the most information…”.
(Apologies for the foul language included in the original Reddit posts below.
A screenshot of an example of the Reddit posts can be emailed to reporters by Kevin Kamps upon request.)
TEXT OF VARIOUS REDDIT POSTS RELATED TO THIS INCIDENT:
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I was waiting for Holtec to put out a release, but it’s been over a day now so I guess they aren’t going to, so fuck ‘em.
They dropped a fuel assembly inside of the vessel. As of about 24 hours ago it was lying fully horizontal on the core plate. Probably the worst fuel handling fuck up I’ve ever seen. There’s a picture making the rounds, it’s ugly. They’ve probably started recovery ops by now, but that picture is going to stick around.
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Are the 09 pics the one of the stick sitting diagonally in a fuel rack? Or am I thinking of something else?
I’ve been told it’s a once-burned assembly from their last cycle in 2022. It looks VERY dark in the picture, and you can see the fresh sticks in the same pick are shiny clean.
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Whoa.. I'm adding to this now that I'm home from work... If true, that has got to be a speedrun achievement for the cursed bingo card of nuclear blunders. Forget the guy who took an accidental swim in the cavity last fall—we've apparently upgraded to micro-managing a high-stakes game of 3D underwater Jenga with radioactive geometry.
Pour one out for the engineering team, who are currently stress-sweating through a hyper-speed 10 CFR 50.59 evaluation trying to figure out how to legally write "oops, we dropped a spicy toothpick sideways" into an acceptable recovery procedure without the NRC resident inspector developing a permanent eye twitch.
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No_Revolution6947 16d ago (September 6, 2026) posted:
The 09 would have been used assemblies in the core obviously bent.
Ugh, dropping a burned assembly…it doesn’t shine, it’s a used assembly. Then, depending on how badly it’s bent, it might need a specially designed fixture to put it into and then to transfer it to the SFP (spent fuel pool). That will take a few weeks. But then, at least the cause analysis will be sufficiently completed that procedure changes and training can be done (and the core redesign) so they can be ready to slowly finish refueling. If it’s also laying against other assemblies or the lower end fitting hit other assemblies as it fell, the inspections of the impacted assemblies can be done.
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Another post on the Reddit thread from September 3–4 stated:
Sounds like the reload isn’t going so well, I saw a picture this morning of a BIG uh-oh.
(Emphases added)
Gundersen has also hypothesized that the fuel bundle incident might have damaged the grid inside the reactor that holds the fuel assemblies perfectly upright.
Given that the fuel assembly is not new, but has been previously irradiated, Gundersen has pointed out it has fission gas and other fission products inside of its bundled nuclear fuel rods, by this time mainly Krypton-85, but also Cesium-134, Cesium-137, Strontium-90, and Iodine-129, to name but several. Gundersen has warned that cracks in the fuel assembly’s rods would contaminate everything in the pool, and that airborne releases are possible inside containment.
If in fact the fuel assembly was lying horizontally, it seems to indicate it was dropped before being inserted, and face-planted on the top grid, Gundersen explained. The fuel assembly weighs close to a thousand pounds, and likely damaged itself and the grid during the incident, Gundersen added.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and the retired nuclear safety director at Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out that Palisades has had similar incidents in the past, under previous corporate owners. (Kevin Kamps can email related documents to reporters upon request.)
