NRC reviews LAR on Palisades fuel loading incident, as Pioneer SMR application advances

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing a license amendment request (LAR) Holtec submitted in the aftermath of a fuel loading incident that has paused some of the restart work at the Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert, Mich.

The LAR proposes a revision to Holtec's updated final safety analysis report (UFSAR) on Palisades that would allow workers to use different plant equipment to transport a fuel assembly that is currently tilted inside the reactor vessel. It would also allow the fuel assembly to take a different travel path than what was originally included in the UFSAR.

What's in the LAR: Documents found in NRC's ADAMS library and a public notice shed more light on the fuel loading incident. According to the LAR, the fuel assembly was placed in core location H-1 but tilted over after being released by the refueling machine. The fuel assembly is tilted at a 30-degree angle from the core plate, with the lower tie plate in its core location and the upper tie plate leaning against the core shroud on the opposite side of the core. Despite this, the fuel rods in the assembly have retained their integrity, and none of the other fuel assemblies were impacted. The assembly in question is currently stable and has not moved, with the refueling team keeping surveillance on it. In a news release, the NRC said they have verified the fuel rods in the tilted assembly remain intact and safe.

Holtec described the emergency request as a "one-time use" revision to remove the assembly using an alternate method. According to the documents, the Holtec team has engineered and fabricated a custom recovery tool and a fuel transfer canister to support and enclose the affected assembly during transit from the reactor vessel to the spent fuel pool. The proposed changes to the UFSAR would be effective only during the retrieval, packaging, transportation, and placement of the canister and fuel assembly.

"Tilting of fuel assembly DD41 was not an intended outcome of core loading and therefore [Palisades Nuclear Power Plant] could not have foreseen the need for a license amendment to revise the UFSAR-described fuel handling process and associated fuel-handling accident assumptions that would support a routine licensing amendment request submission schedule," the Holtec team wrote in the LAR. "[Palisades] is requesting emergency processing of this license amendment request as a delay in approval of the proposed changes would result in a delay in the resumption of activities necessary to reach the plant conditions required to restore the plant to power operation."

Holtec submitted the LAR on September 30, requesting an approval by October 2. The NRC opened the request for a public comment period that expired on the afternoon of October 8.

NRC staff did, however, provide a preliminary determination that the requested amendment involves no significant hazards consideration, saying that Holtec's proposal does not "significantly increase the probability or consequences of any accident previously considered, nor create the possibility of an accident of a different kind, nor significantly decrease any margin of safety."

Other Palisades news: The LAR submission on September 30 came on the same day that Holtec's subsidiary, SMR LLC, submitted the preliminary safety analysis report (PSAR) to the NRC as part of its phased construction permit application to begin construction of a two-unit SMR-300 plant at the Palisades site. In late 2025, Holtec submitted the first part of the application seeking a limited work authorization.

Named Pioneer-1 and -2, the twin 340-MWe pressurized water reactors would join the restarted Palisades PWR reactor at the Michigan site, which Holtec calls the Palisades Energy Campus.

"This submittal, the most significant step to date toward establishing the regulatory framework for the Pioneer plant, was preceded by numerous pre-submittal engagement meetings with the NRC and sustained rigorous technical interactions with the Commission's staff," the release said.

With regard to the Pioneer project, Holtec will next work on completing a Class 2 construction estimate, a 4D simulation of the entire plant showing the step-by-step evolution of construction, and the confirmatory safety analyses in the run-up to a final safety analysis report (FSAR).

In addition, the NRC will provide public notice through the Federal Register of the acceptance and review of the first part of the SMR project construction permit application for four consecutive weeks, beginning October 1.