The United States effort to reverse the permanent shutdown of a nuclear station for the first time hit a potential snag this week when an ex-employee at the facility went public with safety concerns about reopening the 53-year-old power plant.

Now the company that owns the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station on Michigans southwest coast is hitting back at what it called a series of assumptions and inaccurate statements from Alan Blind, a former engineering director.

Blinds seven-year tenure overlapped with a period when the plant performed poorly and required significant improvements and ended nearly a decade before its closure two years ago, according to Florida-based Holtec International, which bought the station from utility giant Entergy following its shutdown in May 2022.

In an unusually pointed 1,000-word rebuttal, Holtec said significant investments, upgrades, and modifications were made by the prior owner to dramatically and measurably improve plant reliability in the nine years after Blinds departure. The company said the process is on schedule and announced at a public meeting this month that the plant is on track to reopen in October 2025.

But Blind cast doubt on Holtecs proposed budget and timeline for restoring Palisades given that no U.S. reactor has ever come back online after ceasing operations ahead of a planned demolition.

Resurrecting the Palisades plant is among the most closely watched nuclear projects in the nation now that construction is finally finished on the only two new reactors built from scratch in a generation.

While atomic energy is considered by far the most reliable source of carbon-free electricity ever harnessed, the steep cost and decade-long timelines for constructing new plants limit the potential for nuclear power to meet Americans surging electricity demand, stem rising blackouts and slash planet-heating pollution from fossil fuels.

New laws Congress passed over the past three years made billions of dollars available to the nuclear energy industry to extend the operating lives of existing plants, build new reactors and catch up with Russia and China on next-generation nuclear power technologies.