Holtec pauses Palisades fuel loading after one fuel assembly tilted

Holtec Nuclear Corporation said in a progress report posted on September 21, 2026 that fuel loading at its Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Covert Township, Michigan remains paused after one fuel assembly "tilted from its upright position after it had been placed, and the fuel-handling machine grapple had been disengaged." The plant entered Mode 6, the refueling mode, and began loading fuel into the reactor vessel on August 30, 2026, per the report, which dates the start of loading and gives the tilt itself no separate date. The National attributes an August 30 date for the incident to Holtec's statement, and the photo caption on WWMT's story dates the tilt to August 30, 2026. Holtec says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was notified and that plant personnel evaluated the incident and determined it did not trigger the safety reporting requirements under NRC regulations.

The company says a root cause evaluation has begun, that its corporate engineering division is developing equipment to retrieve the assembly and return it to the spent fuel pool, and that Palisades is preparing a license amendment request for the NRC "related to the proposed methodology to retrieve the assembly."

The first NRC account on the record came through The National, which reported on September 21, 2026 that NRC spokesperson Viktoria Mitlyng told the outlet there was "no radiological release" and that "no workers or the public have been affected," that the assembly was not dropped but "tipped," and that the incident did not warrant reporting to the NRC. Per The National, Mitlyng said NRC inspectors at Palisades "have been monitoring restart activities, including all fuel-handling work, from the beginning," and that Holtec "has indicated it plans to submit a licence amendment for the retrieval process, which the agency will thoroughly evaluate." The outlet says it contacted the NRC after Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists relayed a Reddit allegation that Holtec had dropped "a partially burned nuclear fuel assembly," and that Holtec's statement was posted to the company's website shortly after The National's article was published; the two pages' own publication stamps run the other way, Holtec's report at 19:21 UTC on September 21 against the outlet's article at 22:23 UTC. In a follow-up on September 23, The National quoted a Holtec public affairs official's statement that the "fuel remains intact, and there was no radiological release or injury associated with the issue," and reported that Holtec has no plans to release any photographs of the accident "at this time."

WWMT reported on September 23, 2026, in a story updated September 24 that Holtec communications manager Nick Culp said the assembly remains in the reactor vessel pending retrieval and that fuel loading will resume when the assembly has been addressed, and quoted him: "The cause remains under evaluation, and we will not speculate while that work is underway." WWMT also quoted Mitlyng, in different words: "NRC inspectors at Palisades have monitored restart activities from the beginning," and, per the station, she said the NRC "will document any findings or issues in a publicly available inspection report." Nuclear Newswire, the American Nuclear Society's news service, reported on September 25 that the assembly was a previously used one, and that Holtec spokesman Patrick O'Brien did not provide additional details to Nuclear News on the incident and its impact on the restart. The core being loaded is mixed: Nuclear Newswire says the 204 assemblies include new fuel and partially used fuel from the plant's most recent operating cycles, as Holtec's August 31, 2026 release, covered here on September 1, also said. On the tilted assembly specifically, Holtec's report says "one fuel assembly" and does not describe it; Nuclear Newswire says it was previously used; The National's September 23 account narrates new fuel going into the reactor when one of the assemblies tipped.

Holtec's report says restart activities that do not depend on the fuel-loading matter continue in parallel, and that progression to later operating modes "remains subject to satisfactory resolution of the affected fuel assembly, completion of required testing and modifications, and applicable NRC approvals." Once loading is complete and the reactor vessel reassembled, the plant will prepare to move to Mode 5, cold shutdown. On September 11, 2026, per the report, Palisades reconnected to its 345-kV switchyard after restoration work coordinated with ITC, the transmission owner; final commissioning and testing are continuing.

The authority to operate dates from 2025: by letter dated July 24, 2025, the NRC issued Amendment No. 276 to the plant's renewed operating license "to reflect the reauthorization of power operations," as The Duck Curve reported when fuel loading began. The retrieval amendment is a request Holtec says it is preparing, per its report, and one Mitlyng, per The National, said Holtec "has indicated it plans to submit"; as read on September 25, 2026, the "Licensing Actions Under Review" list on the NRC's Palisades page, which says the licensee "is pursuing several licensing actions to restore the operational status of the plant," shows no action related to retrieving a fuel assembly.

The schedule and the money

When loading began, as The Duck Curve reported on September 1, 2026, Nuclear Newswire noted that Holtec CEO Kris Singh had said in a summer 2026 interview that he expected Palisades to restart in 2026, ahead of its contract to supply power by March 2027. The restart's financing includes a US Department of Energy loan guarantee of up to $1.52 billion, per DOE's August 7, 2025 release on its fifth disbursement.

Four days before the progress report, on September 17, 2026, Holtec Nuclear Corporation said it was postponing its initial public offering "following discussion with our banking syndicate." The notice attributes the decision to "the unusual confluence of developments that has impaired investor confidence in the market for new public offerings," names "uncertainty over data center development" as the primary driver of a nuclear-sector retreat, and lists the Palisades restart among near-term priorities it plans to keep advancing.

The notice does not mention fuel loading, the tilted assembly or the pause. The National's September 23 report quoted Michael Keegan, chair of Don't Waste Michigan, saying it was "not a coincidence" that what he called Holtec's "IPO withdrawal" could not go forward "with pending bad news of a major refueling snafu at the end of August"; Holtec's notice calls it a postponement and gives market conditions as the reason.

Outlook

Holtec's report names three conditions for progression to later operating modes, "satisfactory resolution of the affected fuel assembly, completion of required testing and modifications, and applicable NRC approvals." The amendment for the retrieval method is, per Holtec's report and per the NRC spokesperson's account in The National, planned rather than filed, and the NRC's list of licensing actions under review showed nothing of the kind as of September 25, 2026. Against that stands the March 2027 contracted supply date Nuclear Newswire cites, which neither of Holtec's September documents reaffirms or revises. Holtec's report gives no date for resuming fuel loading: it says loading remains paused while Holtec addresses the affected assembly, Culp, via WWMT, said loading will resume when the assembly has been addressed, and WWMT reports that Holtec has no timeline for the restart.