Dive Brief:
- Local officials in Carlton, Wisconsin, have found that the closing of the nearby Kewaunee Power Station will result in hundreds of jobs lost and $360,000 of lost revenue for the town, leaving it with only a third of the revenue it takes in now.
- The plant, owned by Dominion Resources, closed in May 2013 due to the lower cost of buying energy on the market. The plant had a 556 MW generation capacity and will take about 60 years to dismantle—the upper federal limit mandated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
- The plant is one of 17 nuclear plants currently being closed down, said Moody's Investor Services in a new report on widespread plant closures. Moody's said the lower price of natural gas, renewable energy, and changes in environmental regulations have sparked more plant closures in the past few decades than at any other time.
Dive Insight:
According to Mark Kanz, spokesman for Dominion Resources, “It was cheaper to purchase energy on the open market than to produce it at Kewaunee. I’m sure it won’t be the last to close. There will be other plants that go through decommissioning, whether it’s economics or from equipment-related issues.”
Indeed it isn't. Another nuclear facility, the Vermont-based Yankee power plant, is due to close by the end of this year for much the same reasons as Kewaunee. Like Kewaunee, it provided a vast amount of the local town's income—nearly half of its revenue comes from the plant, according to Moody's. Of the 100 nuclear reactors currently operating in the U.S., about 50% are the same age as Kewaunee, putting them at risk of closing as well.
David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists said that the increasing cost of keeping aging nuclear sites going means that even if natural gas and renewables prices stop falling, the nuclear industry is probably still going to be affected by closures.