DTE Fermi 2 Power Plant | Susan J. Demas
In its first meeting of the new legislative session, members of the House Energy Committee took testimony Tuesday morning on a resurrected package of bills aimed at expanding research, development and production of hydrogen and nuclear power.
The committee welcomed input from researchers and representatives from energy utilities, nuclear plants, colleges and labor groups to give their thoughts on the six bills looking to incentivize research into nuclear and hydrogen energy, and support efforts to bring new nuclear reactors online through educational grants and tax credits.
“This legislative package does three important things, incentivizes Michigan businesses to become part of the supply chain associated with the growth of nuclear energy, encourages growth in the workforce training and retention program to support nuclear energy in the state, and clarifies the siting requirements for advanced nuclear systems. These are all key steps for the state to take leadership in this technology,” Todd Allen, the chair of the department of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan, said while giving his support to the bills.
Rep. Pauline Wendzel (R-Bainbridge Township), the committee’s chair, kicked off testimony on the bills by highlighting Michigan’s status as a top 10 state for nuclear power, telling members this package would help make the state not only a national leader, but a global leader on nuclear power.
“Nuclear energy is experiencing a renaissance — I think we’re all aware of that right now — not just in the United States, but in the entire world. Global energy demand is rising. Data centers are coming online, we’ve got AI, [electric vehicles] and we are seeking increased demand for reliable energy sources,” Wendzel said.
The package, House Bills 4124–4129 will mark Michigan as open to business for nuclear investors around the world, Wendzel said, arguing that simply keeping the state’s existing nuclear plants in operation will not secure Michigan’s place as a leader in nuclear energy.
In the time since these efforts were first introduced, other states have taken their own steps to promote nuclear energy development, Wendzel said.
“Tennessee is looking to mirror job retention and education portions of this package while adding a $92.6 million investment. Texas has moved aggressively this year, already copying a good portion of this package while adding a multi billion dollar fund, billion, to support new nuclear facilities in their state, and Indiana, just right to our south, who is stealing things from us, is also taking action,” She said. “My counterpart in their Senate is advancing legislation allowing investor owned utilities to recover development costs of SMRs [small modular reactors].”
The package was crafted to ensure lawmakers aren’t simply throwing money at the problem, but structuring financial incentives to reward investment, innovation and efforts to build the workforce needed for these efforts, Wendzel said.
House Bill 4127 creates a legal definition for an SMR while House Bill 4124 creates a research and development tax credit for the design, development and implementation of SMRs, Wendzel said, with House Bill 4128 offering a production credit for the first 10 gigawatt hours these facilities generate, rewarding development and workforce training efforts.
The remaining bills in the package center around workforce attraction and development efforts, addressing concerns raised by members of the nuclear industry, State Rep. Joey Andrews (D-St. Joseph) said.
“In Michigan, we are blessed to have universities that train some of the most talented nuclear engineers and operators in the country. The unfortunate problem is that they tend to leave the state and go to the rest of the country. And so we worked on this side of the package to encourage people to stay in the state, but also to encourage our universities and our community colleges to make investments in both the nuclear and the hydrogen workforce space,” Andrews said.
Andrews’ House Bill 4129 establishes a workforce attraction-retention scholarship program with the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, providing direct grants, tax credits, or both to in-state and out of state graduates who commit to employment at a new or existing nuclear or hydrogen energy facility for a minimum of three years after receiving a degree or credential.
The remaining bills in the package establish a fund and a grant program for post-secondary schools that establish or expand educational programs that lead to degrees or credentials supportive of the nuclear and hydrogen industries, or who offer scholarships to students committed to working in those industries.
Andrews’ noted that Lake Michigan College, a local community college in his district, already had a successful program to credential students and send them into the nuclear workforce.
Ken Flowers, provost and vice president of academic affairs of Lake Michigan College, later told members of the committee that the college is 20 minutes from the Holtec Palisades nuclear plant and north of the D.C. Cook nuclear plant. House Bills 4124-4129 would greatly help their community with skill training and workforce development effort, and help ramp these efforts up quickly, Flowers said.
“I’ll give you an example. In 2008 in January, we did not have an energy focused program. We got a call from both Palisades and Cook at the same time, and by September of 2008 we had over 150 students in programming,” Flowers said.
The skills from these programs are transferable, Flowers said, and will also help drive skilled trades programming, industrial-based programming, and advanced manufacturing programming.
The college also holds strong relationships with the local Michigan Works branch, Berrien County Regional Education Service Agency and has developed programming to bring energy training into local highschools, Flowers said.
Robert Joerg, the director of government affairs of the Michigan Laborers District Council, said the package would create a number of high paying jobs, with their union’s members employed in several Michigan energy facilities, ranging from renewables, to fossil fuels to nuclear and the transportation of fuels.
Their members are also key to construction and decommissioning of these plants, with roughly 200 members working at facilities undergoing refueling and maintenance, Joerg said. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Energy points to research noting SMRs could create 7,000 direct and indirect jobs.
While the package also received support from several other university and labor organizations as well as DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, Sierra Club Michigan pushed back against the package in written testimony submitted to the committee members.
“Nuclear energy is the most expensive energy source, often requiring significant government subsidies. SMRs are not an exception,” Tim Minotas, Sierra Club Michigan’s deputy legislative and political director wrote in his testimony.
“Even if SMRs receive billions of dollars in financial support as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), they cannot compete in the market against cheaper existing technologies such as wind, solar, and batteries. The levelized cost of electricity from SMRs is over five times that of power from wind turbines and utility-scale solar plants. While renewable energy and storage costs are declining rapidly, nuclear construction costs are rising,” Minotas wrote, pointing to the $35 billion price tag on Georgia’s Vogtle plant, which came online in 2024.
Minotas also argued nuclear reactors present serious timeline and operational issues, with asset management and financial advisory firm Lazard noting that utility-scale solar facilities can be built in about 9 months, whereas nuclear reactors can take 69 months or longer, excluding permitting efforts which can take years.
Additionally, Michigan and the United States lack a permanent central repository to dispose of spent nuclear fuel cells, Minotas said, arguing any community housing an SMR would have to plan to be a de facto long-term nuclear waste disposal site.
“The potential degradation of Great Lakes water used for cooling, and the lack of a safe disposal solution for radioactive waste are critical concerns. As rising Great Lakes water levels, storm surges and heavy rainfall erodes coastal and inland flood defenses, nuclear plants storing waste along our waterways are not a safe bet in a changing climate,” Minotas said, citing a 2021 study published in Nature Energy which found the frequency of climate-related nuclear plant outages is nearly eight times higher than it was in the 1990s.
While the Sierra Club of Michigan does not necessarily oppose the use of currently-operating nuclear plants to support the state’s clean energy transition, or the use of green hydrogen, it instead argues the state should focus its efforts on building up capacity for energy transmission; expanding investments into wind and solar; developing utility, residential and community level energy storage; ramping up energy efficiency and demand response efforts and removing barriers to distribute and community-owned energy generation like rooftop or community solar.
“Rather than subsidizing an industry with an uncertain future, our state should invest in proven, rapidly deployable clean energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, and battery storage. Or at the very least, ensure they are included and financially supported along with the others in this bill package,” Minotas said.
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