A nuclear plant that was shut down is powering America again. Energy Secretary Chris Wright stood outside the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in southwestern Michigan on Wednesday and delivered the news: “Palisades was shut down four and a half years ago. Back up and running at 800 megawatts of power.”
It is a promise kept. “18 months ago, President Trump set an aggressive goal for an American nuclear renaissance,” Wright said. In May 2025 the President signed executive orders to rebuild America’s nuclear industry, and one of the goals was to create five gigawatts of new power generation from plants that had already been built. Part of that comes from upgrades, getting more power out of existing reactors. Three of those projects bring shut-down plants back to life, and Palisades is leading the way.
The Trump team is nearly there. “We’ve already identified very close to the full five gigawatts,” Wright said. For American families and businesses, that means more steady, around-the-clock electricity on the grid as demand climbs with new factories and data centers. “More power to meet America’s growing needs. More opportunity for American families,” the secretary wrote.
This is the opposite of the old energy policy, when perfectly good plants were closed and Americans were told to use less. Under President Trump, the goal is energy addition, not subtraction. “This is American energy addition,” Wright said. “This is the nuclear renaissance in action.” From restarted reactors in Michigan to record American oil and gas, the Golden Age is being built on American power.
