Huff shares insight into restarting decommissioned reactors

The pursuit of returning two of the country's retired nuclear plants into service is not only unusual-it is unprecedented and promises to make history.

That's according to a piece coauthored by former assistant secretary for nuclear energy Katy Huff in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists regarding plans from Holtec and Constellation to restart Michigan's Palisades plant and Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island Unit 1, respectively.

Nuclear needed: "Nuclear energy is back in the spotlight because it is the country's single largest source of carbon-free energy at a time when reducing carbon emissions is increasingly becoming urgent," wrote Huff and Nathan Ryan, a nuclear engineering graduate student at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign. Since stepping down from her DOE post earlier this year, Huff has returned to work as an associate professor in nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois.

"The question now is: What does it take to bring a nuclear plant back online after decommissioning has begun?" they added.

Differences: The article discusses the differences between scheduled refueling shutdowns that happen every years at nuclear power plants and the process (one that usually takes 15 to 20 years) of permanently decommissioning a unit. Most significantly, necessary maintenance in units preparing for retirement is likely deferred.

Read more about the technical processes being undertaken by energy companies working to bring retired plants back on line in the full article.